Untangling the Chemodynamics of the Stellar Populations in M31

Our unique perspective from within the Milky Way gives us the ability to spectroscopically observe individual stars in all of its major components. These data have given us a good understanding of the chemical evolution, star formation, and merger history of our galaxy. One clear signature of the Milky Way’s history is the presence of multiple disk components with different spatial, kinematic, and chemical distributions. Establishing the ubiquity of these substructures in external galaxies will help us better understand galactic evolution. However, even in our neighbor, M31, observing individual stars in its inner regions is impracticable due to crowding, and we must use integrated light to identify stellar population trends. We have obtained high-resolution, near infrared, integrated light spectra of ~1100 positions in the inner ~6 kpc of M31 with APOGEE. We analyze these data via full spectrum fitting in order to measure the mean age, [M/H], and [⍺/M] of the stellar populations across the entirety of M31s bar, bulge, and inner disk. We also adapt this analysis for multiple chemodynamic components. Our findings will help guide future galactic evolution models by identifying the typical substructures found in Milky Way-like galaxies.