scholarly journals Hic sunt dracones: Cartography of the Milky Way spiral arms and bar resonances with Gaia Data Release 2

2020 ◽  
Vol 634 ◽  
pp. L8 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Khoperskov ◽  
O. Gerhard ◽  
P. Di Matteo ◽  
M. Haywood ◽  
D. Katz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phase Space ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Solar Radius ◽  
Spiral Arms ◽  
Full Phase Space ◽  
Spatial Coverage ◽  
Data Release ◽  
Space Data ◽  
First Time ◽  
Stellar Density

In this paper we introduce a new method for analysing Milky Way phase-space which allows us to reveal the imprint left by the Milky Way bar and spiral arms on the stars with full phase-space data in Gaia Data Release 2. The unprecedented quality and extended spatial coverage of these data allowed us to discover six prominent stellar density structures in the disc to a distance of 5 kpc from the Sun. Four of these structures correspond to the spiral arms detected previously in the gas and young stars (Scutum-Centaurus, Sagittarius, Local, and Perseus). The remaining two are associated with the main resonances of the Milky Way bar where corotation is placed at around 6.2 kpc and the outer Lindblad resonance beyond the solar radius, at around 9 kpc. For the first time we provide evidence of the imprint left by spiral arms and resonances in the stellar densities not relying on a specific tracer, through enhancing the signatures left by these asymmetries. Our method offers new avenues for studying how the stellar populations in our Galaxy are shaped.

scholarly journals Gaia Data Release 2

2018 ◽  
Vol 616 ◽  
pp. A11 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
D. Katz ◽  
T. Antoja ◽  
M. Romero-Gómez ◽  
R. Drimmel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phase Space ◽  
Velocity Field ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Solar Neighbourhood ◽  
Galactic Centre ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Galactic Disc ◽  
Giant Stars ◽  
Data Release ◽  
Velocity Dispersions

Context. The second Gaia data release (Gaia DR2) contains high-precision positions, parallaxes, and proper motions for 1.3 billion sources as well as line-of-sight velocities for 7.2 million stars brighter than GRVS = 12 mag. Both samples provide a full sky coverage. Aims. To illustrate the potential of Gaia DR2, we provide a first look at the kinematics of the Milky Way disc, within a radius of several kiloparsecs around the Sun. Methods. We benefit for the first time from a sample of 6.4 million F-G-K stars with full 6D phase-space coordinates, precise parallaxes (σϖ∕ϖ ≤ 20%), and precise Galactic cylindrical velocities (median uncertainties of 0.9-1.4 km s-1 and 20% of the stars with uncertainties smaller than 1 km s-1 on all three components). From this sample, we extracted a sub-sample of 3.2 million giant stars to map the velocity field of the Galactic disc from ~5 kpc to ~13 kpc from the Galactic centre and up to 2 kpc above and below the plane. We also study the distribution of 0.3 million solar neighbourhood stars (r < 200 pc), with median velocity uncertainties of 0.4 km s-1, in velocity space and use the full sample to examine how the over-densities evolve in more distant regions. Results. Gaia DR2 allows us to draw 3D maps of the Galactocentric median velocities and velocity dispersions with unprecedented accuracy, precision, and spatial resolution. The maps show the complexity and richness of the velocity field of the galactic disc. We observe streaming motions in all the components of the velocities as well as patterns in the velocity dispersions. For example, we confirm the previously reported negative and positive galactocentric radial velocity gradients in the inner and outer disc, respectively. Here, we see them as part of a non-axisymmetric kinematic oscillation, and we map its azimuthal and vertical behaviour. We also witness a new global arrangement of stars in the velocity plane of the solar neighbourhood and in distant regions in which stars are organised in thin substructures with the shape of circular arches that are oriented approximately along the horizontal direction in the U − V plane. Moreover, in distant regions, we see variations in the velocity substructures more clearly than ever before, in particular, variations in the velocity of the Hercules stream. Conclusions. Gaia DR2 provides the largest existing full 6D phase-space coordinates catalogue. It also vastly increases the number of available distances and transverse velocities with respect to Gaia DR1. Gaia DR2 offers a great wealth of information on the Milky Way and reveals clear non-axisymmetric kinematic signatures within the Galactic disc, for instance. It is now up to the astronomical community to explore its full potential.

scholarly journals Leaves on trees: identifying halo stars with extreme gradient boosted trees

2018 ◽  
Vol 621 ◽  
pp. A13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jovan Veljanoski ◽  
Amina Helmi ◽  
Maarten Breddels ◽  
Lorenzo Posti
Keyword(s):  
Phase Space ◽  
New Era ◽  
Massive Galaxies ◽  
Full Phase Space ◽  
Halo Stars ◽  
Machine Learning Model ◽  
Data Release ◽  
Stellar Halo ◽  
Red Giant ◽  
Galactic Astronomy

Context. Extended stellar haloes are a natural by-product of the hierarchical formation of massive galaxies like the Milky Way. If merging is a non-negligible factor in the growth of our Galaxy, evidence of such events should be encoded in its stellar halo. The reliable identification of genuine halo stars is a challenging task, however. Aims. With the advent of the Gaia space telescope, we are ushered into a new era of Galactic astronomy. The first Gaia data release contains the positions, parallaxes, and proper motions for over two million stars, mostly in the solar neighbourhood. The second Gaia data release will enlarge this sample to over 1.5 billion stars, the brightest ~ 5 million of which will have full phase-space information. Our aim for this paper is to develop a machine learning model for reliably identifying halo stars, even when their full phase-space information is not available. Methods. We use the Gradient Boosted Trees algorithm to build a supervised halo star classifier. The classifier is trained on a sample of stars extracted from the Gaia Universe Model Snapshot, which is also convolved with the errors of the public TGAS data, which is a subset of Gaia DR1, as well as with the expected uncertainties for the upcoming Gaia DR2 catalogue. We also trained our classifier on a dataset resulting from the cross-match between the TGAS and RAVE catalogues, where the halo stars are labelled in an entirely model-independent way. We then use this model to identify halo stars in TGAS. Results. When full phase-space information is available and for Gaia DR2-like uncertainties, our classifier is able to recover 90% of the halo stars with at most 30% distance errors, in a completely unseen test set and with negligible levels of contamination. When line-of-sight velocity is not available, we recover ~ 60% of such halo stars, with less than 10% contamination. When applied to the TGAS catalogue, our classifier detects 337 high confidence red giant branch halo stars. At first glance this number may seem small, however, it is consistent with the expectation from the models, given the uncertainties in the data. The large parallax errors are in fact the biggest limitation in our ability to identify a large number of halo stars in all the cases studied.

scholarly journals The Milky Way’s bar structural properties from gravitational waves

2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (4) ◽  
pp. 4958-4971
Author(s):  
Martijn J C Wilhelm ◽  
Valeriya Korol ◽  
Elena M Rossi ◽  
Elena D’Onghia
Keyword(s):  
Milky Way ◽  
Galactic Plane ◽  
Reference Value ◽  
Axial Ratio ◽  
Optical Observations ◽  
Structural Parameter ◽  
Spiral Arms ◽  
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna ◽  
First Time ◽  
Good Agreement

ABSTRACT The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will enable Galactic gravitational wave (GW) astronomy by individually resolving &gt;104 signals from double white dwarf (DWD) binaries throughout the Milky Way. Since GWs are unaffected by stellar crowding and dust extinction unlike optical observations of the Galactic plane, in this work, we assess for the first time the potential of LISA to map the Galactic stellar bar and spiral arms. To achieve this goal, we combine a realistic population of Galactic DWDs with a high-resolution N-body Galactic simulation in good agreement with current observations of the Milky Way. We then model GW signals from our synthetic DWD population and reconstruct the structure of the simulated Galaxy from mock LISA observations. Our results show that while the low-density contrast between the background disc and the spiral arms hampers our ability to characterize the spiral structure, the stellar bar will clearly appear in the GW map of the bulge. The axial ratio derived from the synthetic observations agrees within 1σ with the reference value, although the scale lengths are underestimated. We also recover the bar viewing angle to within 1° and the bar’s physical length to within 0.2 kpc. This shows that LISA can provide independent constraints on the bar’s structural parameter, competitive compared to those from electromagnetic tracers. We therefore foresee that synergistic use of GWs and electromagnetic tracers will be a powerful strategy to map the Milky Way’s bar and bulge.

scholarly journals The echo of the bar buckling: Phase-space spirals in Gaia Data Release 2

2019 ◽  
Vol 622 ◽  
pp. L6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergey Khoperskov ◽  
Paola Di Matteo ◽  
Ortwin Gerhard ◽  
David Katz ◽  
Misha Haywood ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phase Space ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Physical Mechanism ◽  
Galactic Center ◽  
Numerical Study ◽  
Vertical Motion ◽  
Solar Neighborhood ◽  
Vertical Coordinate ◽  
Data Release ◽  
Bar Buckling

We present a high-resolution numerical study of the phase-space diversity in an isolated Milky Way-type galaxy. Using a single N-body simulation (N ≈ 0.14 × 109) we explore the formation, evolution, and spatial variation of the phase-space spirals similar to those recently discovered by Antoja et al. in the Milky Way disk with Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2). For the first time in the literature we use a self-consistent N-body simulation of an isolated Milky Way-type galaxy to show that the phase-space spirals develop naturally from vertical oscillations driven by the buckling of the stellar bar. Thus, we claim that the physical mechanism standing behind the observed incomplete phase-space mixing process can be internal and not necessarily due to the perturbation induced by a massive satellite. In our model, the bending oscillations propagate outward and produce axisymmetric variations of the mean vertical coordinate and vertical velocity component of about 100 − 200 pc and 1 − 2 km s−1, respectively. As a consequence, the phase-space wrapping results in the formation of patterns with various morphologies across the disk, depending on the bar orientation, distance to the galactic center, and time elapsed since the bar buckling. Once bending waves appear, they are supported for a long time via disk self-gravity. Such vertical oscillations trigger the formation of various time-dependent phase-space spirals in the entire disk. The underlying physical mechanism implies the link between in-plane and vertical motion that leads directly to phase-space structures whose amplitude and shape are in remarkable agreement with those of the phase-space spirals observed in the Milky Way disk. In our isolated galaxy simulation, phase-space spirals are still distinguishable at the solar neighborhood 3 Gyr after the buckling phase. The long-lived character of the phase-space spirals generated by the bar buckling instability cast doubts on the timing argument used so far to get back to the time of the onset of the perturbation: phase-space spirals may have been caused by perturbations originated several gigayearrs ago, and not as recent as suggested so far.

scholarly journals Evidence for coupling of evolved star atmospheres and spiral arms of the Milky Way

2020 ◽  
Vol 495 (1) ◽  
pp. 726-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D Gorski ◽  
Pauline Barmby
Keyword(s):  
Interstellar Medium ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Spiral Structure ◽  
Spiral Arms ◽  
Evolved Stars ◽  
Data Release ◽  
Water Masers

ABSTRACT It is imperative to map the strength and distribution of feedback in galaxies to understand how feedback affects galactic ecosystems. H2O masers act as indicators of energy injection into the interstellar medium. Our goal is to measure the strength and distribution of feedback traced by water masers in the Milky Way. We identify optical counterparts to H2O masers discovered by the HOPS survey. The distribution and luminosities of H2O masers in the Milky Way are determined using parallax measurements derived from the second Gaia Data Release. We provide evidence of a correlation between evolved stars, as traced by H2O masers, and the spiral structure of the Milky Way, suggesting a link between evolved stars and the Galactic environment.

scholarly journals Enhancement of the tidal disruption event rate in galaxies with a nuclear star cluster: from dwarfs to ellipticals

2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (2) ◽  
pp. 2276-2285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Pfister ◽  
Marta Volonteri ◽  
Jane Lixin Dai ◽  
Monica Colpi
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Event Rate ◽  
Star Cluster ◽  
Scaling Relations ◽  
Tidal Disruption ◽  
Massive Black Holes ◽  
First Time ◽  
Stellar Density ◽  
Disruption Event

ABSTRACT We compute the tidal disruption event (TDE) rate around local massive black holes (MBHs) with masses as low as $2.5\times 10^4\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$, thus probing the dwarf regime for the first time. We select a sample of 37 galaxies for which we have the surface stellar density profile, a dynamical estimate of the mass of the MBH, and 6 of which, including our Milky Way, have a resolved nuclear star cluster (NSC). For the Milky Way, we find a total TDE rate of ${\sim}10^{-4}\, \mathrm{yr}^{-1}$ when taking the NSC in account, and ${\sim}10^{-7} \, \mathrm{yr}^{-1}$ otherwise. TDEs are mainly sourced from the NSC for light (${\lt}3\times 10^{10}\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$) galaxies, with a rate of few $10^{-5}\, \mathrm{yr}^{-1}$, and an enhancement of up to two orders of magnitude compared to non-nucleated galaxies. We create a mock population of galaxies using different sets of scaling relations to explore trends with galaxy mass, taking into account the nucleated fraction of galaxies. Overall, we find a rate of few $10^{-5}\, \mathrm{yr}^{-1}$ which drops when galaxies are more massive than $10^{11}\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$ and contain MBHs swallowing stars whole and resulting in no observable TDE.

scholarly journals Dynamical heating across the Milky Way disc using APOGEE and Gaia

2019 ◽  
Vol 489 (1) ◽  
pp. 176-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Ted Mackereth ◽  
Jo Bovy ◽  
Henry W Leung ◽  
Ricardo P Schiavon ◽  
Wilma H Trick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Velocity Dispersion ◽  
Solar Radius ◽  
Giant Molecular Clouds ◽  
Bayesian Neural Network ◽  
Spiral Arms ◽  
Satellite Perturbations ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Gaia Dr2

Abstract The kinematics of the Milky Way disc as a function of age are well measured at the solar radius, but have not been studied over a wider range of Galactocentric radii. Here, we measure the kinematics of mono-age, mono-[Fe/H] populations in the low and high [α/Fe] discs between 4 ≲ R ≲ 13 kpc and |z| ≲ 2 kpc using 65 719 stars in common between APOGEE DR14 and Gaia DR2 for which we estimate ages using a Bayesian neural network model trained on asteroseismic ages. We determine the vertical and radial velocity dispersions, finding that the low and high [α/Fe] discs display markedly different age–velocity dispersion relations (AVRs) and shapes σz/σR. The high [α/Fe] disc has roughly flat AVRs and constant σz/σR = 0.64 ± 0.04, whereas the low [α/Fe] disc has large variations in this ratio that positively correlate with the mean orbital radius of the population at fixed age. The high [α/Fe] disc component’s flat AVRs and constant σz/σR clearly indicate an entirely different heating history. Outer disc populations also have flatter radial AVRs than those in the inner disc, likely due to the waning effect of spiral arms. Our detailed measurements of AVRs and σz/σR across the disc indicate that low [α/Fe], inner disc ($R \lesssim 10\, \mathrm{kpc}$) stellar populations are likely dynamically heated by both giant molecular clouds and spiral arms, while the observed trends for outer disc populations require a significant contribution from another heating mechanism such as satellite perturbations. We also find that outer disc populations have slightly positive mean vertical and radial velocities likely because they are part of the warped disc.

scholarly journals Anisotropic infall in the outskirts of OmegaWINGS galaxy clusters

2020 ◽  
Vol 493 (4) ◽  
pp. 4950-4959
Author(s):  
Juan Manuel Salerno ◽  
Héctor J Martínez ◽  
Hernán Muriel ◽  
Valeria Coenda ◽  
Benedetta Vulcani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phase Space ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Galaxy Clusters ◽  
Galaxy Groups ◽  
Data Release ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Redshift Survey ◽  
Galaxy Redshift ◽  
First Time ◽  
Field Galaxy

ABSTRACT We study the effects of the environment on galaxy quenching in the outskirts of clusters at 0.04 &lt; z &lt; 0.08. We use a subsample of 14 WINGS and OmegaWINGS clusters that are linked to other groups/clusters by filaments and study separately galaxies located in two regions in the outskirts of these clusters according to whether they are located towards the filaments’ directions or not. We also use samples of galaxies in clusters and field as a comparison. Filamentary structures linking galaxy groups/clusters were identified over the Six Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey Data Release 3. We find a fraction of passive galaxies in the outskirts of clusters intermediate between that of the clusters and the field’s. We find evidence of a more effective quenching in the direction of the filaments. We also analyse the abundance of post-starburst (PS) galaxies in the outskirts of clusters focusing our study on two extreme sets of galaxies according to their phase-space position: backsplash and true infallers. We find that up to $\sim 70{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of PS galaxies in the direction of filaments are likely backsplash, while this number drops to $\sim 40{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ in the isotropic infall region. The presence of this small fraction of galaxies in filaments that are falling into clusters for the first time and have been recently quenched, supports a scenario in which a significant number of filament galaxies have been quenched long time ago.

scholarly journals The globular cluster system of the Auriga simulations

2020 ◽  
Vol 496 (1) ◽  
pp. 638-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo L R Halbesma ◽  
Robert J J Grand ◽  
Facundo A Gómez ◽  
Federico Marinacci ◽  
Rüdiger Pakmor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Globular Cluster ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Cluster Formation ◽  
Solar Radius ◽  
High Mass ◽  
Formation Model ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
High Mass Loss ◽  
Globular Cluster System ◽  
Varying Mass

ABSTRACT We investigate whether the galaxy and star formation model used for the Auriga simulations can produce a realistic globular cluster (GC) population. We compare statistics of GC candidate star particles in the Auriga haloes with catalogues of the Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda (M31) GC populations. We find that the Auriga simulations do produce sufficient stellar mass for GC candidates at radii and metallicities that are typical for the MW GC system (GCS). We also find varying mass ratios of the simulated GC candidates relative to the observed mass in the MW and M31 GCSs for different bins of galactocentric radius metallicity (rgal–[Fe/H]). Overall, the Auriga simulations produce GC candidates with higher metallicities than the MW and M31 GCS and they are found at larger radii than observed. The Auriga simulations would require bound cluster formation efficiencies higher than 10 per cent for the metal-poor GC candidates, and those within the Solar radius should experience negligible destruction rates to be consistent with observations. GC candidates in the outer halo, on the other hand, should either have low formation efficiencies, or experience high mass-loss for the Auriga simulations to produce a GCS that is consistent with that of the MW or M31. Finally, the scatter in the metallicity as well as in the radial distribution between different Auriga runs is considerably smaller than the differences between that of the MW and M31 GCSs. The Auriga model is unlikely to give rise to a GCS that can be consistent with both galaxies.

scholarly journals A structural analytic method on the phase space data of Linac 4 MV photons based on the real world

2021 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 109-113
Author(s):  
Zhenguo Cui ◽  
Songlin Sha ◽  
Yanling Bai
Keyword(s):  
Phase Space ◽  
Real World ◽  
Analytic Method ◽  
The Real ◽  
Space Data
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