The Gaia-ESO survey: Matching chemodynamical simulations to observations of the Milky Way
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Authors
Thompson, BB
Few, CG
Bergemann, M
Gibson, BK
MacFarlane, BA
Serenelli, A
Randich, S
Vallenari, A
Alfaro, EJ
Bensby, T
Francois, P
Korn, AJ
Bayo, A
Carraro, G
Costado, MT
Donati, P
Franciosini, E
Frasca, A
Hourihane, Anna
Jofrè, P
Hill, V
Heiter, U
Koposov, SE
Lanzafame, A
Lardo, C
de Laverny, P
Lewis, J
Magrini, L
Marconi, G
Masseron, T
Monaco, L
Morbidelli, L
Pancino, E
Prisinzano, L
Recio-Blanco, A
Sacco, G
Sousa, SG
Tautvaišiene, G
Zaggia, S
Publication Date
2018-01Journal Title
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
ISSN
0035-8711
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Volume
473
Issue
1
Pages
185-197
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Thompson, B., Few, C., Bergemann, M., Gibson, B., MacFarlane, B., Serenelli, A., Gilmore, G., et al. (2018). The Gaia-ESO survey: Matching chemodynamical simulations to observations of the Milky Way. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 473 (1), 185-197. https://doi.org/10.1093/MNRAS/STX2316
Abstract
The typical methodology for comparing simulated galaxies with observational
surveys is usually to apply a spatial selection to the simulation to mimic the
region of interest covered by a comparable observational survey sample. In this
work we compare this approach with a more sophisticated post-processing in
which the observational uncertainties and selection effects (photometric,
surface gravity and effective temperature) are taken into account. We compare a
`solar neighbourhood analogue' region in a model Milky Way-like galaxy
simulated with RAMSES-CH with fourth release Gaia-ESO survey data. We find that
a simple spatial cut alone is insufficient and that observational uncertainties
must be accounted for in the comparison. This is particularly true when the
scale of uncertainty is large compared to the dynamic range of the data, e.g.
in our comparison, the [Mg/Fe] distribution is affected much more than the more
accurately determined [Fe/H] distribution. Despite clear differences in the
underlying distributions of elemental abundances between simulation and
observation, incorporating scatter to our simulation results to mimic
observational uncertainty produces reasonable agreement. The quite complete
nature of the Gaia-ESO survey means that the selection function has minimal
impact on the distribution of observed age and metal abundances but this would
become increasingly more important for surveys with narrower selection
functions.
Sponsorship
Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2012-541)
European Research Council (320360)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/MNRAS/STX2316
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/284564
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