RR Lyrae stars trace the Milky Way warp Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Cabrera-Gadea M.
  2. Mateu C.
  3. Ramos P.
  4. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

The outskirts of the Milky Way disc have been known to be warped since the late 1950s. Although various stellar populations have shown an underlying warped distribution, the relation between the age of the population and the warp they trace remains an open question. Understanding this relation may shed light on the origin of the warp which remains a puzzle to be solved. Our goal in this work is to detect the presence of the warp in the RR Lyrae (RRL) population of the Milky Way disc. We use a compilation of the three largest public catalogues of RRL stars, precise photometric distances (~5%) and Gaia DR3 proper motions to kinematically select a sample of thin disc RRL in the Galactic anticentre, where the tangential velocity best approximates the azimuthal velocity to differentiate between those that rotate (disc) and those that do not (halo). For those disc-like RRL we analyse their mean vertical height and mean vertical velocity. We show, for the first time, that RRL stars with thin disc-like kinematics trace the warp. In the anticentre direction, the RRL population reaches a minimum in mean vertical height of ~0.4kpc, with a trend systematically lower than the one found with Classical Cepheids. The kinematical signal of the RRL warp starts at R~10kpc and, rather than resembling the Cepheid's, shows a similar trend to the Red Clump population from previous works, reaching a maximum value of ~7km/s in vertical velocity. We also obtain an estimation of the pattern speed of the RRL warp with a prograde rotation of ~13+/-2km/s/kpc, compatible with results obtained from Classical Cepheids. Finally, we also obtain a vertical velocity dispersion ~17km/s, inconsistent with the kinematics of a canonical old age (>10Gyr) disc population and, instead, favouring a population dominated by intermediate-age (3-4Gyr). Our results indicate that the thin disc RRL stars are a dynamical intermediate-age tracer of the warp, opening a new window to study the dependency of the warp with stellar age in the Milky Way.

Keywords
  1. milky-way-galaxy
  2. variable-stars
  3. stellar-distance
  4. metallicity
  5. visible-astronomy
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2025A&A...701A.136C
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/701/A136
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/701/A136

Access

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https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/701/A136
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/701/A136
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/701/A136
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https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/701/A136/table1?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/701/A136/table1?

History

2025-09-09T10:53:26Z
Resource record created
2025-09-09T10:53:26Z
Created
2025-10-01T06:29:29Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr