BHB stars reveal halo's metal-rich progenitor Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Lancaster L.
  2. Koposov S.E.
  3. Belokurov V.
  4. Evans N.W.
  5. Deason A.J.
  6. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

Using the data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Gaia satellite, we assemble a pure sample of ~3000 blue horizontal branch (BHB) stars with 7D information, including positions, velocities, and metallicities. We demonstrate that, as traced with BHBs, the Milky Way's stellar halo is largely unmixed and cannot be well represented with a conventional Gaussian velocity distribution. A single-component model fails because the inner portions of the halo are swamped with metal-rich tidal debris from an ancient, head-on collision, known as the 'Gaia Sausage'. Motivated by the data, we build a flexible mixture model that allows us to track the evolution of the halo make-up across a wide range of radii. It is built from two components, one representing the radially anisotropic Sausage stars with their lobed velocity distribution, and the other representing a more metal-poor and more isotropic component built up from minor mergers. We show that inside 25kpc the 'Sausage' contributes at least 50 per cent of the Galactic halo. The fraction of 'Sausage' stars diminishes sharply beyond 30kpc, which is the long-established break radius of the classical stellar halo.

Keywords
  1. milky-way-galaxy
  2. halo-stars
  3. horizontal-branch-stars
  4. proper-motions
  5. radial-velocity
  6. stellar-distance
  7. visible-astronomy
  8. sloan-photometry
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2019MNRAS.486..378L
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/MNRAS/486/378
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/486/378
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.74860378

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/486/378
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/486/378
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/486/378
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).
https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/486/378/bhball?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/486/378/bhball?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/486/378/bhball?
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/486/378/bhbfilt?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/486/378/bhbfilt?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/486/378/bhbfilt?

History

2022-12-08T12:56:31Z
Resource record created
2022-12-08T12:56:31Z
Created
2024-08-19T20:18:20Z
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