THE LARGE-SCALE STRUCTURE OF THE HALO OF THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY. I. GLOBAL STELLAR DENSITY, MORPHOLOGY AND METALLICITY PROPERTIES

Abstract

We present an analysis of the large-scale structure of the halo of the Andromeda galaxy, based on the Pan-Andromeda Archeological Survey (PAndAS), currently the most complete map of resolved stellar populations in any galactic halo. Despite the presence of copious substructures, the global halo populations follow closely power-law profiles that become steeper with increasing metallicity. We divide the sample into stream-like populations and a smooth halo component (defined as the population that cannot be resolved into spatially distinct substructures with PAndAS). Fitting a three-dimensional halo model reveals that the most metal-poor populations () are distributed approximately spherically (slightly prolate with ellipticity c/a = 1.09 ± 0.03), with only a relatively small fraction residing in discernible stream-like structures (fstream = 42%). The sphericity of the ancient smooth component strongly hints that the dark matter halo is also approximately spherical. More metal-rich populations contain higher fractions of stars in streams, with fstream becoming as high as 86% for . The space density of the smooth metal-poor component has a global power-law slope of γ = −3.08 ± 0.07, and a non-parametric fit shows that the slope remains nearly constant from 30 kpc to ∼300 kpc. The total stellar mass in the halo at distances beyond 2° is ∼1.1 × 1010 M☉, while that of the smooth component is ∼3 × 109 M☉. Extrapolating into the inner galaxy, the total stellar mass of the smooth halo is plausibly ∼8 × 109 M☉. We detect a substantial metallicity gradient, which declines from 〈[Fe/H]〉 = −0.7 at R = 30 kpc to 〈[Fe/H]〉 = −1.5 at R = 150 kpc for the full sample, with the smooth halo being ∼0.2 dex more metal poor than the full sample at each radius. While qualitatively in line with expectations from cosmological simulations, these observations are of great importance as they provide a prototype template that such simulations must now be able to reproduce in quantitative detail.