Cetus dSph stellar chemo-kinematics

In order to quantify its stellar chemo-kinematical properties, we observed individual red giants branch stars in Cetus with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) FORS2 instrument, in Mask eXchange Unit (MXU) configuration. The kinematic analysis shows that Cetus is a mainly pressure-supported ({sigma}_v_=11.0^+1.6^_-1.3_km/s), dark-matter-dominated system (M_1/2_/L_V_=23.9^+9.7^_-8.9_M_{sun}_/L_{sun}_) with no significant signs of internal rotation.

We find Cetus to be a metal-poor system with a significant metallicity spread (median [Fe/H]=-1.71dex, median-absolute-deviation =0.49dex), as expected for its stellar mass. We report the presence of a mild metallicity gradient compatible with those found in other dSphs of the same luminosity; we trace the presence of a stellar population gradient also in the spatial distribution of stars in different evolutionary phases in ancillary photometric data.