RR Lyrae candidates in the MW outer halo Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Cohen J.G.
  2. Sesar B.
  3. Bahnolzer S.
  4. He K.
  5. Kulkarni S.R.
  6. Prince T.A.,Bellm E.
  7. Laher R.R.
  8. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

RR Lyrae stars are ideal massless tracers that can be used to study the total mass and dark matter content of the outer halo of the Milky Way (MW). This is because they are easy to find in the light-curve databases of large stellar surveys and their distances can be determined with only knowledge of the light curve. We present here a sample of 112 RR Lyr stars beyond 50kpc in the outer halo of the MW, excluding the Sgr streams, for which we have obtained moderate-resolution spectra with Deimos on the Keck II Telescope. Four of these have distances exceeding 100kpc. These were selected from a much larger set of 447 candidate RR Lyr stars that were data-mined using machine-learning techniques applied to the light curves of variable stars in the Palomar Transient Facility database. The observed radial velocities taken at the phase of the variable corresponding to the time of observation were converted to systemic radial velocities in the Galactic standard of rest. From our sample of 112 RR Lyr stars we determine the radial velocity dispersion in the outer halo of the MW to be ~90km/s at 50kpc, falling to about 65km/s near 100 kpc once a small number of major outliers are removed. With reasonable estimates of the completeness of our sample of 447 candidates and assuming a spherical halo, we find that the stellar density in the outer halo declines as r^-4^.

Keywords
  1. variable-stars
  2. visible-astronomy
  3. sloan-photometry
  4. radial-velocity
  5. stellar-distance
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2017ApJ...849..150C
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/849/150
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/849/150
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.18490150

Access

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https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/849/150
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/849/150
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/849/150
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https://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).
https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/849/150/rrlyrcand?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/849/150/rrlyrcand?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/849/150/rrlyrcand?

History

2018-07-19T13:13:24Z
Resource record created
2018-07-19T13:13:24Z
Created
2019-12-10T06:59:42Z
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