The origin of the metallicity distributions of the NE and W stellar shelves in the Andromeda Galaxy

Abstract

Tidal streams and stellar shells are naturally formed in galaxy interactions and mergers. The Giant Stellar Stream (GSS), the North-East (NE), and Western (W) stellar shelves observed in Andromeda Galaxy (M31) are examples of these structures and were formed through the merger of M31 and a satellite galaxy. Recent observational papers have provided strong evidence that the shells and GSS originate from a single progenitor. In this paper, we investigate the formation of these two stellar shelves and the detailed nature of their relationship to the GSS. We present numerical simulations of tidal disruption of a satellite galaxy assuming that it is a progenitor of the GSS and the shell system. We represent the progenitor as a dwarf spheroidal galaxy with the stellar mass of 109 M and evolve its merger with M31 for 3 Gyr to reproduce the chemodynamical properties of the NE and W shelves. We find that an initial metallicity of the progenitor with a negative radial gradient of ∆FeH = −0.3 ± 0.2 successfully reproduces observed metallicities of the NE, W shelves, and the GSS, showing that all these structures can originate from the same merger event.