Inferring dark matter substructure with astrometric lensing beyond the power spectrum

Astrometry---the precise measurement of positions and motions of celestial objects---has emerged as a promising avenue for characterizing the dark matter population in our Galaxy. By leveraging recent advances in simulation-based inference and neural network architectures, we introduce a novel method to search for global dark matter-induced gravitational lensing signatures in astrometric datasets. Our method based on neural likelihood-ratio estimation shows significantly enhanced sensitivity to a cold dark matter population and more favorable scaling with measurement noise compared to existing approaches based on two-point correlation statistics, establishing machine learning as a powerful tool for characterizing dark matter using astrometric data.

3D Parameter Maps of Red Clump Stars in the Milky Way: Absolute Magnitudes and Intrinsic Colors

Red clump stars (RCs) are useful tracers of distances, extinction, chemical abundances, and Galactic structures and kinematics. Accurate estimation of RC parameters—absolute magnitude and intrinsic color—is the basis for obtaining high-precision RC distances. By combining astrometric data from Gaia; spectroscopic data from APOGEE and LAMOST; and multiband photometric data from Gaia, APASS, Pan-STARRS1, 2MASS, and WISE surveys, we use a Gaussian process regression to train machine learners to derive the multiband absolute magnitudes M λ and intrinsic colors ( λ 1 − λ 2 ) 0 for each spectral RC. The dependence of M λ on metallicity decreases from optical to infrared bands, while the dependence of M λ on age is relatively similar in each band. ( λ 1 − λ 2 ) 0 are more affected by metallicity than age. The RC parameters are not suitable to be represented by simple constants but are related to the Galactic stellar population structure. By analyzing the variation of M λ and ( λ 1 − λ 2 ) 0 in the spatial distribution, we construct (R, z) dependent maps of mean absolute magnitudes and mean intrinsic colors of the Galactic RCs. Through external and internal validation, we find that using three-dimensional (3D) parameter maps to determine RC parameters avoids systematic bias and reduces dispersion by about 20% compared to using constant parameters. Based on Gaia's EDR3 parallax, our 3D parameter maps, and extinction–distance profile selection, we obtain a photometric RC sample containing 11 million stars with distance and extinction measurements.

Presence of red giant population in the foreground stellar sub-structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud

The eastern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is found to have a foreground stellar sub-structure, which is identified as a distance bimodality (∼ 12 kpc apart) in the previous studies using Red Clump (RC) stars. Interestingly, studies of Red Giant Branch (RGB) stars in the eastern SMC indicate a bimodal radial velocity (RV) distribution. In this study, we investigate the connection between these two bimodal distributions to better understand the nature and origin of the foreground stellar sub-structure in the eastern SMC. We use the Gaia EDR3 astrometric data and archival RV data of RGB stars for this study. We found a bimodal RV distribution of RGB stars (separated by ∼ 35–45 km s−1) in the eastern and south-western (SW) outer regions. The observed proper motion values of the lower and higher RV RGB components in the eastern regions are similar to those of the foreground and main-body RC stars respectively. This suggests that the two RGB populations in the eastern region are separated by a similar distance as those of the RC stars, and the RGB stars in the lower RV component are part of the foreground sub-structure. Based on the differences in the distance and RV of the two components, we estimated an approximate time of formation of this sub-structure as 307 ± 65 Myr ago. This is comparable with the values predicted by simulations for the recent epoch of tidal interaction between the Magellanic Clouds. Comparison of the observed properties of RGB stars, in the outer SW region, with N-body simulations shows that the higher RV component in the SW region is at a farther distance than the main body, indicating the presence of a stellar Counter-Bridge in the SW region of the SMC.

MASS RATIOS OF LONG-PERIOD BINARY STARS RESOLVED IN PRECISION ASTROMETRY CATALOGS OF TWO EPOCHS

Mass ratios of widely separated, long-period, resolved binary stars can be directly estimated from the available data in major space astrometry catalogs, such as the ESA's Hipparcos and Gaia mission results. The method is based on the universal principle of inertial motion of the system's center of mass in the absence of external forces, and is independent of any assumptions about the physical parameters or stellar models. The application is limited by the precision of input astrometric data, the orbital period and distance to the system, and possible presence of other attractors in the vicinity, such as in triple systems. A generalization of this technique to triples is proposed, as well as approaches to estimation of uncertainties. The known long-period binary HIP 473 AB is discussed as an application example, for which a m2/ m1 = 0.996+0.026 −0.026 is obtained.

All-sky visible and near infrared space astrometry

The era of all-sky space astrometry began with the Hipparcos mission in 1989 and provided the first very accurate catalogue of apparent magnitudes, positions, parallaxes and proper motions of 120 000 bright stars at the milliarcsec (or milliarcsec per year) accuracy level. Hipparcos has now been superseded by the results of the Gaia mission. The second Gaia data release contained astrometric data for almost 1.7 billion sources with tens of microarcsec (or microarcsec per year) accuracy in a vast volume of the Milky Way and future data releases will further improve on this. Gaia has just completed its nominal 5-year mission (July 2019), but is expected to continue in operations for an extended period of an additional 5 years through to mid 2024. Its final catalogue to be released $\sim $ ∼ 2027, will provide astrometry for $\sim $ ∼ 2 billion sources, with astrometric precisions reaching 10 microarcsec. Why is accurate astrometry so important? The answer is that it provides fundamental data which underpin much of modern observational astronomy as will be detailed in this White Paper. All-sky visible and Near-InfraRed (NIR) astrometry with a wavelength cutoff in the K-band is not just focused on a single or small number of key science cases. Instead, it is extremely broad, answering key science questions in nearly every branch of astronomy while also providing a dense and accurate visible-NIR reference frame needed for future astronomy facilities.

Multi-colour photometry and Gaia EDR3 astrometry of two couples of binary clusters (NGC 5617 and Trumpler 22) and (NGC 3293 and NGC 3324).

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of two pairs of binary clusters (NGC 5617 and Trumpler 22) and (NGC 3293 and NGC 3324) located in the fourth quadrant of our Galaxy. For this purpose we use different data taken from VVV survey, WISE, VPHAS, APASS, GLIMPSE along with Gaia EDR3 astrometric data. We identified 584, 429, 692 and 273 most probable cluster members with membership probability higher than $80 \%$ towards the region of clusters NGC 5617, Trumpler 22, NGC 3293 and NGC 3324. We estimated the value of $R=\frac{A_{V}}{E(B-V)}$ as ∼ 3.1 for clusters NGC 5617 and Trumpler 22, which indicates normal extinction law. The value of R ∼3.8 and ∼1.9 represent the abnormal extinction law towards the clusters NGC 3293 and NGC 3324. Our Kinematical analysis show that all these clusters have circular orbits. Ages are found to be 90 ± 10 and 12 ± 3 Myr for the cluster pairs (NGC 5617 and Trumpler 22) and (NGC 3293 and NGC 3324), respectively. The distances of 2.43 ± 0.08, 2.64 ± 0.07, 2.59 ± 0.1 and 2.80 ± 0.2 kpc estimated using parallax are alike to the values calculated by using the distance modulus. We have also identified 18 and 44 young stellar object candidates present in NGC 5617 and Trumpler 22, respectively. Mass function slopes are found to be in fair agreement with the Salpeter’s value. The dynamical study of these objects shows a lack of faint stars in their inner regions, which leads to the mass-segregation effect. Our study indicates that NGC 5617 and Trumpler 22 are dynamically relaxed but the other pair of clusters are not. Orbital alongwith the physical parameters show that the clusters in both pairs are physically connected.

New results for FBS late-type stars using Gaia EDR3 data

We study in this paper bright late-type giants found in the First Byurakan Survey (FBS) data base. Phase dependent light-curves from large sky area variability data bases such as Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) and All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), and the early installment of the third Gaia data release (Gaia EDR3) photometric and astrometric data have been used to characterize our sample of 1 100 M-type giants and 130 C-type stars found at high latitudes. Gaia radial velocities (RV) are available for 134 and luminosities for 158 stars out of 1 100. We show the behaviour of our sample stars in a Gaia color–absolute magnitude diagram (CaMD), the Gaia-2MASS-diagram from Lebzelter et al. with some alternative versions. In this way we explore the potential of these diagrams and their combination for the analysis and interpretation of datasets of LPVs. We show the possibility to classify stars into M- and C-types and to identify the mass of the bulk of the sample stars.

Characterizing dynamical states of Galactic open clusters with Gaia DR2

ABSTRACT In this work, we investigate the dynamical properties of 38 Galactic open clusters: 34 of them are located at low Galactic latitudes (|b| < 10°) and are projected against dense stellar fields; the other four comparison objects present clearer contrasts with the field population. We determine structural and time-related parameters that are associated with the clusters’ dynamical evolution: core (rc), tidal (rt), and half-mass (rhm) radii, ages (t), and crossing times (tcr). We have also incorporated results for 27 previously studied clusters, creating a sample of 65, spanning the age and Galactocentric distance (RG) ranges $7.0 \lt \textrm {log}\, t \lt 9.7$ and 6 < RG (kpc) < 13. We employ a uniform analysis method which incorporates photometric and astrometric data from the Gaia DR2 catalogue. Member stars are identified by employing a decontamination algorithm which operates on the 3D astrometric space of parallax and proper motion and attributes membership likelihoods for stars in the cluster region. Our results show that internal relaxation causes rc to correlate negatively with the dynamical ratio τdyn = t/tcr. This implies that dynamically older systems tend to be more centrally concentrated. The more concentrated ones tend to present smaller rhm/rt ratios, which means that they are less subject to tidal disruption. The analysis of coeval groups at compatible RG suggests that the inner structure of clusters is reasonably insensitive to variations in the external tidal field. Additionally, our results confirm, on average, an increase in rt for regions with less-intense Galactic gravitational fields.