1,055 research outputs found
GAIA: Composition, Formation and Evolution of the Galaxy
The GAIA astrometric mission has recently been approved as one of the next
two `cornerstones' of ESA's science programme, with a launch date target of not
later than mid-2012. GAIA will provide positional and radial velocity
measurements with the accuracies needed to produce a stereoscopic and kinematic
census of about one billion stars throughout our Galaxy (and into the Local
Group), amounting to about 1 per cent of the Galactic stellar population.
GAIA's main scientific goal is to clarify the origin and history of our Galaxy,
from a quantitative census of the stellar populations. It will advance
questions such as when the stars in our Galaxy formed, when and how it was
assembled, and its distribution of dark matter. The survey aims for
completeness to V=20 mag, with accuracies of about 10 microarcsec at 15 mag.
Combined with astrophysical information for each star, provided by on-board
multi-colour photometry and (limited) spectroscopy, these data will have the
precision necessary to quantify the early formation, and subsequent dynamical,
chemical and star formation evolution of our Galaxy. Additional products
include detection and orbital classification of tens of thousands of
extra-Solar planetary systems, and a comprehensive survey of some 10^5-10^6
minor bodies in our Solar System, through galaxies in the nearby Universe, to
some 500,000 distant quasars. It will provide a number of stringent new tests
of general relativity and cosmology. The complete satellite system was
evaluated as part of a detailed technology study, including a detailed payload
design, corresponding accuracy assesments, and results from a prototype data
reduction development.Comment: Accepted by A&A: 25 pages, 8 figure
The First Data Release of the Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey
The Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey (BASS) is a new wide-field legacy imaging
survey in the northern Galactic cap using the 2.3m Bok telescope. The survey
will cover about 5400 deg in the and bands, and the expected
5 depths (corrected for the Galactic extinction) in the two bands are
24.0 and 23.4 mag, respectively. BASS started observations in January 2015, and
has completed about 41% of the whole area as of July 2016. The first data
release contains both calibrated images and photometric catalogs obtained in
2015 and 2016. The depths of single-epoch images in the two bands are 23.4 and
22.9 mag, and the full depths of three epochs are about 24.1 and 23.5 mag,
respectively.Comment: 16 pages, published by A
Verification of Photometric Parallaxes with Gaia DR2 Data
Results of comparison of Gaia DR2 parallaxes with data derived from a
combined analysis of 2MASS (Two Micron All-Sky Survey), SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky
Survey), GALEX (Galaxy Evolution Explorer), and UKIDSS (UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky
Survey) surveys in four selected high-latitude sky areas are
presented. It is shown that multicolor photometric data from large modern
surveys can be used for parameterization of stars closer than 4400 pc and
brighter than , including estimation of parallax and
interstellar extinction value. However, the stellar luminosity class should be
properly determined.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
Nine tiny star clusters in Gaia DR1, PS1 and DES
We present the results of a systematic Milky Way satellite search performed
across an array of publicly available wide-area photometric surveys. Our aim is
to complement previous searches by widening the parameter space covered.
Specifically, we focus on objects smaller than and include old, young,
metal poor and metal rich stellar population masks. As a result we find 9 new
likely genuine stellar systems in data from GAIA, DES, and Pan-STARRS, which
were picked from the candidate list because of conspicuous counterparts in the
cut-out images. The presented systems are all very compact () and faint
(), and are associated either with the Galactic disk, or the
Magellanic Clouds. While most of the stellar systems look like Open Clusters,
their exact classification is, as of today, unclear. With these discoveries, we
extend the parameter space occupied by star clusters to sizes and luminosities
previously unexplored and demonstrate that rather than two distinct classes of
Globular and Open clusters, there appears to be a continuity of objects,
unmarked by a clear decision boundary.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted in MNRAS. v1 submitted version; v2
accepted Versio
Spectroscopic survey of the Galaxy with Gaia I. Design and performance of the Radial Velocity Spectrometer
The definition and optimisation studies for the Gaia satellite spectrograph,
the Radial Velocity Spectrometer (RVS), converged in late 2002 with the
adoption of the instrument baseline. This paper reviews the characteristics of
the selected configuration and presents its expected performance. The RVS is a
2.0 by 1.6 degree integral field spectrograph, dispersing the light of all
sources entering its field of view with a resolving power R=11 500 over the
wavelength range [848, 874] nm. The RVS will continuously and repeatedly scan
the sky during the 5 years of the Gaia mission. On average, each source will be
observed 102 times over this period. The RVS will collect the spectra of about
100-150 million stars up to magnitude V~17-18. At the end of the mission, the
RVS will provide radial velocities with precisions of ~2 km/s at V=15 and
\~15-20 km/s at V=17, for a solar metallicity G5 dwarf. The RVS will also
provide rotational velocities, with precisions (at the end of the mission) for
late type stars of sigma_vsini ~5 km/s at V~15 as well as atmospheric
parameters up to V~14-15. The individual abundances of elements such as Silicon
and Magnesium, vital for the understanding of Galactic evolution, will be
obtained up to V~12-13. Finally, the presence of the 862.0 nm Diffuse
Interstellar Band (DIB) in the RVS wavelength range will make it possible to
derive the three dimensional structure of the interstellar reddening.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. Fig. 1,2,4,5,
6 in degraded resolution; available in full resolution at
http://blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.08282.x/pd
Science Impacts of the SPHEREx All-Sky Optical to Near-Infrared Spectral Survey: Report of a Community Workshop Examining Extragalactic, Galactic, Stellar and Planetary Science
SPHEREx is a proposed SMEX mission selected for Phase A. SPHEREx will carry
out the first all-sky spectral survey and provide for every 6.2" pixel a
spectra between 0.75 and 4.18 m [with R41.4] and 4.18 and 5.00
m [with R135]. The SPHEREx team has proposed three specific science
investigations to be carried out with this unique data set: cosmic inflation,
interstellar and circumstellar ices, and the extra-galactic background light.
It is readily apparent, however, that many other questions in astrophysics and
planetary sciences could be addressed with the SPHEREx data. The SPHEREx team
convened a community workshop in February 2016, with the intent of enlisting
the aid of a larger group of scientists in defining these questions. This paper
summarizes the rich and varied menu of investigations that was laid out. It
includes studies of the composition of main belt and Trojan/Greek asteroids;
mapping the zodiacal light with unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution;
identifying and studying very low-metallicity stars; improving stellar
parameters in order to better characterize transiting exoplanets; studying
aliphatic and aromatic carbon-bearing molecules in the interstellar medium;
mapping star formation rates in nearby galaxies; determining the redshift of
clusters of galaxies; identifying high redshift quasars over the full sky; and
providing a NIR spectrum for most eROSITA X-ray sources. All of these
investigations, and others not listed here, can be carried out with the nominal
all-sky spectra to be produced by SPHEREx. In addition, the workshop defined
enhanced data products and user tools which would facilitate some of these
scientific studies. Finally, the workshop noted the high degrees of synergy
between SPHEREx and a number of other current or forthcoming programs,
including JWST, WFIRST, Euclid, GAIA, K2/Kepler, TESS, eROSITA and LSST.Comment: Report of the First SPHEREx Community Workshop,
http://spherex.caltech.edu/Workshop.html , 84 pages, 28 figure
The Second-Generation Guide Star Catalog: Description and Properties
The GSC-II is an all-sky database of objects derived from the uncompressed
DSS that the STScI has created from the Palomar and UK Schmidt survey plates
and made available to the community. Like its predecessor (GSC-I), the GSC-II
was primarily created to provide guide star information and observation
planning support for HST. This version, however, is already employed at some of
the ground-based new-technology telescopes such as GEMINI, VLT, and TNG, and
will also be used to provide support for the JWST and Gaia space missions as
well as LAMOST, one of the major ongoing scientific projects in China. Two
catalogs have already been extracted from the GSC-II database and released to
the astronomical community. A magnitude-limited (R=18.0) version, GSC2.2, was
distributed soon after its production in 2001, while the GSC2.3 release has
been available for general access since 2007.
The GSC2.3 catalog described in this paper contains astrometry, photometry,
and classification for 945,592,683 objects down to the magnitude limit of the
plates. Positions are tied to the ICRS; for stellar sources, the all-sky
average absolute error per coordinate ranges from 0.2" to 0.28" depending on
magnitude. When dealing with extended objects, astrometric errors are 20% worse
in the case of galaxies and approximately a factor of 2 worse for blended
images. Stellar photometry is determined to 0.13-0.22 mag as a function of
magnitude and photographic passbands (B,R,I). Outside of the galactic plane,
stellar classification is reliable to at least 90% confidence for magnitudes
brighter than R=19.5, and the catalog is complete to R=20.Comment: 52 pages, 33 figures, to be published in AJ August 200
MILKY WAY MORPHOLOGY PROBED BY 6D ASTROMETRIC DATA FROM THE GAIA SPACE TELESCOPE
At varying height above and below the plane of the Milky Way, I have used astrometric methods to classify stars of different galactic components of the Milky Way - the thin disk, thick disk, and stellar halo. This work complements prior study of Milky Way sub-structure - notably involving number density and/or pairwise correlations - which demonstrate non-steady state effects in the galaxy, such as axial/north-south symmetry breaking or more complex phenomena like the Gaia snail. This has motivated my exploration of stellar population changes with height about the Milky Way mid-plane, and the study of symmetry in such changes above and below the galactic mid-plane.
Drawing from the second data release (DR2) of the Gaia space telescope, I have chosen a stellar sample with notably small parallax error and a 6D astrometric phase space, totaling 707,772 stars. Prior work in Hinkel 2020 was used as a reference for optimal sampling parameters. Selection cuts have been taken to avoid saturation from the Magellanic Clouds and the mid-plane of the Milky Way, in addition to controlling for Gaia\u27s astrometric uncertainties and sampling biases. After a conversion of astrometric to galactocentric coordinates, I have employed a statistical method to distinguish the populations of stars by their likelihood of belonging to the Milky Way\u27s thin/thick disk and stellar halo components, using stellar kinematic data. Kinematic criteria for galactic populations were chosen to avoid galactic component contamination, where stars are attributed to the incorrect galactic components due to phase space overlap of the different components - a common issue in population separation routines. To assess confidence in this statistical method, I used the bootstrapping method to construct error estimates within sub-slices in galactocentric z. My methods have yielded a notable, novel result: at low galactic z, the population fraction variation is asymmetric North and South of the galactic mid-plane
- …