SDSS-DR8 BHB stars in the Milky Way's halo Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Xue X.-X.
  2. Rix H.-W.
  3. Yanny B.
  4. Beers T.C.
  5. Bell E.F.
  6. Zhao G.,Bullock J.S.
  7. Johnston K.V.
  8. Morrison H.
  9. Rockosi C.
  10. Koposov S.E.,Kang X.
  11. Liu C.
  12. Luo A.
  13. Lee Y.S.
  14. Weaver B.A.
  15. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

We present and analyze the positions, distances, and radial velocities for over 4000 blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars in the Milky Way's halo, drawn from SDSS DR8. We search for position-velocity substructure in these data, a signature of the hierarchical assembly of the stellar halo. Using a cumulative "close pair distribution" as a statistic in the four-dimensional space of sky position, distance, and velocity, we quantify the presence of position-velocity substructure at high statistical significance among the BHB stars: pairs of BHB stars that are close in position on the sky tend to have more similar distances and radial velocities compared to a random sampling of these overall distributions. We make analogous mock observations of 11 numerical halo formation simulations, in which the stellar halo is entirely composed of disrupted satellite debris, and find a level of substructure comparable to that seen in the actually observed BHB star sample. This result quantitatively confirms the hierarchical build-up of the stellar halo through a signature in phase (position-velocity) space. In detail, the structure present in the BHB stars is somewhat less prominent than that seen in most simulated halos, quite possibly because BHB stars represent an older sub-population. BHB stars located beyond 20kpc from the Galactic center exhibit stronger substructure than at r_gc_<20kpc.

Keywords
  1. milky-way-galaxy
  2. visible-astronomy
  3. sloan-photometry
  4. radial-velocity
  5. horizontal-branch-stars
  6. halo-stars
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2011ApJ...738...79X
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/738/79
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/738/79
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.17380079

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/738/79
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/738/79
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/738/79
IVOA Table Access TAP
http://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/738/79/table1?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/738/79/table1?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/738/79/table1?

History

2013-07-22T14:12:40Z
Resource record created
2013-07-22T14:12:40Z
Created
2017-11-06T12:23:29Z
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