Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2020

Publication Title

The Astrophysical Journal

Volume

890

Abstract

We report the discovery of two ultra-faint stellar systems found in early data from the DECam Local Volume Exploration survey (DELVE). The first system, Centaurus I (DELVE J1238–4054), is identified as a resolved overdensity of old and metal-poor stars with a heliocentric distance of , a half-light radius of , an age of , a metallicity of , and an absolute magnitude of . This characterization is consistent with the population of ultra-faint satellites and confirmation of this system would make Centaurus I one of the brightest recently discovered ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. Centaurus I is detected in Gaia DR2 with a clear and distinct proper motion signal, confirming that it is a real association of stars distinct from the Milky Way foreground; this is further supported by the clustering of blue horizontal branch stars near the centroid of the system. The second system, DELVE 1 (DELVE J1630–0058), is identified as a resolved overdensity of stars with a heliocentric distance of , a half-light radius of , an age of , a metallicity of , and an absolute magnitude of , consistent with the known population of faint halo star clusters. Given the low number of probable member stars at magnitudes accessible with Gaia DR2, a proper motion signal for DELVE 1 is only marginally detected. We compare the spatial position and proper motion of both Centaurus I and DELVE 1 with simulations of the accreted satellite population of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and find that neither is likely to be associated with the LMC.

Issue

2

DOI

10.3847/1538-4357/ab6c67

ISSN

0004-637X

Comments

Due to system limitations, the full list of co-authors is not listed on this article record. Please see the final version published by the American Astronomical Society for the full list: http://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab6c67

Rights

© 2020. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

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