Chemical Enrichment and Radial Migration in the Galactic Disk -- the origin of the [$α/\rm Fe]$ Double Sequence

Sanjib Sharma, Michael R. Hayden, Joss Bland-Hawthorn

Published 2020-05-07Version 1

The $([\alpha/{\rm Fe}],[{\rm Fe/H}])$ distribution of Milky Way stars shows at least two distinct sequences, which have traditionally been associated with the thin and thick disc components. The abundance distribution varies systematically with location $R$ and $|z|$ across the Galaxy. Using an analytical chemodynamical model that includes the effects of radial migration and kinematic heating, we show that it is possible to reproduce the observed abundance distribution at different locations. Unlike some earlier models, our scheme does not require a distinct thick disc component emerging from a separate evolutionary path. The proposed model has a continuous star formation history and a continuous age velocity dispersion relation. Moreover, [$\alpha$/Fe] is constant for stellar ages less than 8 Gyr, but increases sharply for older stars over a time scale of 1.5 Gyr. The gap between the two sequences is due to this sharp transition. We show that the high-[$\alpha$/Fe] sequence at the low metallicity end is simply a pile-up of old stars. At the high metallicity end, we find a sequence of stars having different ages with a similar birth radius that originated in the inner disc. Our model successfully explains the uniformity of the locus of the high-[$\alpha$/Fe] sequence across different locations. The low-[$\alpha$/Fe] sequence contains stars with different birth radii that owes its existence to radial migration. For the low-[$\alpha$/Fe] sequence, angular momentum is anti-correlated with [Fe/H], and the model can reproduce this trend at different Galactic locations. If radial migration is not included, the model fails to generate the double sequence and instead shows only a single sequence. Our simple scheme has major advantages over earlier chemodynamical models, as we show.