Stellar Stream and Halo Structure in the Andromeda Galaxy From a Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey

We present wide and deep photometry of the northwest part of the halo of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) using Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope. The survey covers 9.2 deg$^{2}$ field in the $g$, $i$, and $NB515$ bands and shows a clear red giant branch (RGB) of M31's halo stars and a pronounced red clump (RC) feature. The spatial distribution of RC stars shows a prominent stream feature, the North Western (NW) Stream, and a diffuse substructure in the south part of our survey field. We estimate the distances based on the RC method and obtain $(m-M)$ = 24.63$\pm 0.191$(random)$\pm0.057$(systematic) and 24.29$\pm 0.211$(random)$\pm0.057$(systematic) mag for the NW stream and diffuse substructure, respectively, implying that the NW Stream is located behind M31, whereas the diffuse substructure is located in front. We also estimate line-of-sight distances along the NW Stream and find that the south part of the stream is $\sim$20 kpc closer to us relative to the north part. The distance to the NW Stream inferred from the isochrone fitting to the color-magnitude diagram favors the RC-based distance, but the TRGB-based distance estimated for $NB515$-selected RGB stars does not agree with it. The surface number density distribution of RC stars across the NW Stream is found to be approximately Gaussian with a FWHM of $\sim$25 arcmin (5.7 kpc), with a slight skew to the south-west side. That along the NW Stream shows a complicated structure including variations in number density and a significant gap in the stream.Comment: 24 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

The structure of the stellar halo of the Andromeda galaxy explored with the NB515 for Subaru/HSC. I.: New Insights on the stellar halo up to 120 kpc

We analyse the M31 halo and its substructure within a projected radius of 120 kpc using a combination of Subaru/HSC NB515 and CFHT/MegaCam g- & i-bands. We succeed in separating M31's halo stars from foreground contamination with $\sim$ 90 \% accuracy by using the surface gravity sensitive NB515 filter. Based on the selected M31 halo stars, we discover three new substructures, which associate with the Giant Southern Stream (GSS) based on their photometric metallicity estimates. We also produce the distance and photometric metallicity estimates for the known substructures. While these quantities for the GSS are reproduced in our study, we find that the North-Western stream shows a steeper distance gradient than found in an earlier study, suggesting that it is likely to have formed in an orbit closer to the Milky Way. For two streams in the eastern halo (Stream C and D), we identify distance gradients that had not been resolved. Finally, we investigate the global halo photometric metallicity distribution and surface brightness profile using the NB515-selected halo stars. We find that the surface brightness of the metal-poor and metal-rich halo populations, and the all population can be fitted to a power-law profile with an index of $\alpha = -1.65 \pm 0.02$, $-2.82\pm0.01$, and $-2.44\pm0.01$, respectively. In contrast to the relative smoothness of the halo profile, its photometric metallicity distribution appears to be spatially non-uniform with nonmonotonic trends with radius, suggesting that the halo population had insufficient time to dynamically homogenize the accreted populations.Comment: 24 pages, 26 figures, 5 tables, submitted to MNRA