A halo substructure in Gaia Data Release 1. (10th April 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Myeong, G. C.; Evans, N. W.; Belokurov, V.; Koposov, S. E.; Sanders, J. L.
• Is Part Of: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Volume 469:Number 1(2017:Jul.)
• Page Start: L78
• Page End: L82
• Publication Date: 2017-04-10
• Subjects: galaxies: kinematics and dynamics -- galaxies: structure; Astronomy -- Research -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/slx051
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1745-3933

Abstract

Abstract: We identify a halo substructure in the Tycho Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) data set, cross-matched with the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE-on) data release. After quality cuts, the stars with large radial action ( JR > 800 km s −1 kpc) are extracted. A subset of these stars is clustered in longitude and velocity and can be selected with further cuts. The 14 stars are centred on ( X, Y, Z ) ≈ (9.0, −1.0, −0.6) kpc and form a coherently moving structure in the halo with median ( vR, v ϕ, vz ) = (167.33, 0.86, −94.85) km s −1 . They are all metal-poor giants with median [Fe/H] = −0.83. To guard against the effects of distance errors, we compute spectrophotometric distances for 8 out of the 14 stars where this is possible. We find that six of the stars are still comoving. These six stars also have a much tighter [Fe/H] distribution ∼−0.7 with one exception ([Fe/H] = −2.12). We conclude that the existence of the comoving cluster is stable against changes in distance estimation and conjecture that this is the dissolving remnant of a globular cluster accreted long ago.