English

Impact of distance determinations on Galactic structure. II. Old tracers

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2018-08-08 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

Here we review the efforts of a number of recent results that use old tracers to understand the build up of the Galaxy. Details that lead directly to using these old tracers to measure distances are discussed. We concentrate on the following: (1) the structure and evolution of the Galactic bulge and inner Galaxy constrained from the dynamics of individual stars residing therein; (2) the spatial structure of the old Galactic bulge through photometric observations of RR Lyrae-type stars; (3) the three\--dimensional structure, stellar density, mass, chemical composition, and age of the Milky Way bulge as traced by its old stellar populations; (4) an overview of RR Lyrae stars known in the ultra-faint dwarfs and their relation to the Galactic halo; and (5) different approaches for estimating absolute and relative cluster ages.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1806.07487,
  title  = {Impact of distance determinations on Galactic structure. II. Old tracers},
  author = {A. Kunder and E. Valenti and M. Dall'Ora and P. Pietrukowicz and C. Sneden and G. Bono and V. F. Braga and I. Ferraro and G. Fiorentino and G. Iannicola and M. Marconi and C. E. Martinez-Vazquez and M. Monelli and I. Musella and V. Ripepi and M. Salaris and P. B. Stetson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.07487},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

Review article, 80 pages (25 figures); Space Science Reviews, in press (chapter of a special collection resulting from the May 2016 ISSI-BJ workshop on Astronomical Distance Determination in the Space Age)