Abstract

Escala
The Elemental Abundances in M31 Survey: Metal Production and Hierarchical Assembly in Andromeda
In massive galaxies like the Milky Way (MW), metal production is driven partly through the process of hierarchical assembly. The accretion of external galaxies onto a MW-like host can provide fuel for star formation in stellar disks, in addition to a view of the evolutionary history of progenitor galaxies ultimately incorporated into stellar halos. Although large spectroscopic surveys have uncovered the MW's formation history, detailed stellar chemical abundances are still lacking in external MW-like galaxies, such as Andromeda (M31). In this talk, I will present an overview of the Elemental Abundances in M31 survey of M31's stellar halo, tidal structures, and satellite dwarf galaxies. With measurements of metallicity and alpha-enhancement for hundreds of individual and coadded groups of red giant branch stars from Keck/DEIMOS spectroscopy, this survey has produced the largest homogeneous set of chemical abundance measurements in M31 to date. I will also discuss ongoing efforts to measure chemical abundances over a representative area of M31's disk and inner stellar halo using data from the Spectroscopic and Photometric Landscape of Andromeda's Stellar Halo (SPLASH) survey. Based on these survey results, I will discuss the emerging picture of M31's history of metal production in the context of hierarchical assembly, from the scales of its disk to its outer halo.