Pristine survey. XXVIII. Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Viswanathan A.
  2. Bystroem A.
  3. Starkenburg E.
  4. Foppen A.
  5. Straat J.,Montelius M.
  6. Sestito F.
  7. Venn K.A.
  8. Navarrete C.
  9. Matsuno T.
  10. Martin N.F.,Thomas G.F.
  11. Ardern-Arentsen A.
  12. Battaglia G.
  13. Fouesneau M.
  14. Navarro J.,Vitali S.
  15. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

The outer Galactic halo remains relatively unexplored, particularly regarding its metallicity distribution, merger debris, and the population of very and extremely metal-poor ([Fe/H]<-2.5) stars. Using photometric metallicities from the Pristine survey data release 1 (PDR1) and Pristine- synthetic (PGS) catalogue and DR3 astrometry, we constructed well-characterised samples of bright (G<17.6) red giant branch (RGB) stars in the outer halo. With accurate distances, these samples enable studies of the halo's metallicity distribution, accreted debris, and very metal-poor (VMP) substructures beyond 40 kpc. We selected giants by excluding stars with reliable parallaxes in brightness ranges where dwarfs are measurable. Purity and completeness were validated against the Pristine spectroscopic training set. Distances were derived using BaSTI isochrone fitting combined with Pristine metallicity estimates. The photometric distances reach ~100kpc (PDR1) and ~70kpc (PGS), with typical uncertainties of 12% and scatter up to 20-40% compared to parallax- and StarHorse-based distances. The PDR1 sample provides a nearly unbiased metallicity-distance view, while the PGS sample offers an all-sky map, especially at the very metal-poor end. Using PDR1-giants, we traced the halo metallicity distribution function out to 101 kpc, fitting a three-component Gaussian mixture model. The most metal-poor component becomes increasingly dominant with distance, as beyond 50kpc, 40-50% of the stars are very metal-poor ([Fe/H]<-2.0). With added radial velocities, we identified metallicity trends in integrals-of-motion space and investigated accreted debris. The PGS sample reveals substructures, including the Pisces Plume, where 41 VMP stars are linked to the Magellanic stream. We publish two RGB catalogues: PDR1-giants (180314 stars, with 10096 very metal-poor candidates and 2096 beyond 40kpc) and PGS-giants (2420898 stars, with 75679 very metal-poor candidates and 267 beyond 40kpc). These catalogues represent extensive resources for future outer halo studies.

Keywords
  1. surveys
  2. stellar-distance
  3. extinction
  4. radial-velocity
  5. visible-astronomy
  6. metallicity
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2026A&A...706A.195V
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/706/A195
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/706/A195
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier/bc-p2/lbjf

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History

2026-02-12T09:46:52Z
Resource record created
2026-02-12T09:46:52Z
Created
2026-03-02T20:01:13Z
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