A search for interstellar absorptions towards Sgr dSph

Abstract

We searched for Na I D1,D2 interstellar absorption lines towards 12 giant stars of the Sgr dwarf spheroidal and 3 stars of the associated globular cluster Terzan 7, observed at high resolution with the UVES spectrograph at the 8.2 m Kueyen VLT telescope. These stars are not an ideal background source for the analysis of interstellar (IS) absorption lines since they have been observed in the framework of a stellar abundances study. However they are sufficiently luminous to allow a decent S/N ratio at a resolution of about 43000, i.e. ~7 km/s, which allows an exploratory study. We detected two distinct groups of IS absorptions, a ``local'' group, with radial velocities ranging from -43 km/s to 50 km/s, and a high velocity group with radial velocities ranging from 150 km/s to 165 km/s. Likely the high velocity components are due to gas falling on the Sgr dSph since have been observed only in 2 stars which are separated by only 1.5' in the sky. We argue that the observations suggest a stripping of gas due to the passage of Sgr through the Galactic disc.