Chemical Characterization of the building blocks of the Milky Way
Abstract
Since galaxy merger and accretion are fundamental processes
in galaxy evolution, reconstructing the accretion history is key to
understanding the evolution of a galaxy. In the Milky Way, we can
study ancient accretion events from kinematics and chemical abundances
of halo stars. In this talk, I will first summarize the discovery of
candidates for past galaxy accretions to the Milky Way, which are made
from the analysis of stellar kinematics available thanks to the Gaia
mission. I will then talk about our follow-up observation programs to
chemically characterize their members, allowing us to confirm the
accretion events and characterize the accreted galaxies’ properties. I
will finally summarize the new opportunities that these found accreted
galaxies bring to the study of nucleosynthesis processes.