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Action-space clustering of tidal streams to map the Galactic potential

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2014

Robyn E. Sanderson
Affiliation:
Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, P.O. Box 800, 9700AV Groningen, Netherlands email: [email protected]
Amina Helmi
Affiliation:
Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, P.O. Box 800, 9700AV Groningen, Netherlands email: [email protected]
David W. Hogg
Affiliation:
Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA
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Abstract

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Given a parametrized model of the Galactic potential, the best-fit parameters can be obtained by maximizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence of the action distribution of a set of stars initially clustered in action space (e.g. stars in tidal streams). This method will allow us to map the Milky Way's gravitational potential by simultaneously fitting multiple tidal streams without requiring stream membership information. With 20 streams of at least 20 stars each, including observational errors consistent with predictions for Gaia, this technique recovers the input potential parameters to a precision of 10-60% and an accuracy of 10%. With all the observed streams in our mock stellar halo (about 40) that fit the error criteria, the precision improves to 10%.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2014 

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