English

The age-velocity dispersion relation of the Galactic discs from LAMOST-Gaia data

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2018-01-31 v1

Abstract

We present the age-velocity dispersion relation (AVR) in three dimensions in the solar neighbourhood using 3,564 commonly observed sub-giant/red-giant branch stars selected from LAMOST, which gives the age and radial velocity, and \emph{Gaia}, which measures the distance and proper motion. The stars are separated into metal-poor ([Fe/H]<0.2{\rm [Fe/H]<-0.2}\,dex and metal-rich ([Fe/H]>0.2{\rm [Fe/H]>-0.2}\,dex) groups, so that the metal-rich stars are mostly α\alpha-poor, while the metal-poor group are mostly contributed by α\alpha-enhanced stars. Thus, the old and metal-poor stars likely belong to the chemically defined thick disc population, while the metal-rich sample is dominated by the thin disc. The AVR for the metal-poor sample shows an abrupt increase at 7\gtrsim7\,Gyr, which is contributed by the thick disc component. On the other hand, most of the thin disc stars with [Fe/H]>0.2{\rm [Fe/H]>-0.2}\,dex display a power-law like AVR with indices of about 0.3--0.4 and 0.5 for the in-plane and vertical dispersions, respectively. This is consistent with the scenario that the disc is gradually heated by the spiral arms and/or the giant molecular clouds. Moreover, the older thin disc stars (>7>7\,Gyr) have a rounder velocity ellipsoid, i.e. σϕ/σz\sigma_\phi/\sigma_{\rm z} is close to 1.0, probably due to the more efficient heating in vertical direction. Particularly for the old metal-poor sample located with z>270|z|>270\,pc, the vertical dispersion is even larger than its azimuthal counterpart. Finally, the vertex deviations and the tilt angles are plausibly around zero with large uncertainties.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1712.03965,
  title  = {The age-velocity dispersion relation of the Galactic discs from LAMOST-Gaia data},
  author = {Jincheng Yu and Chao Liu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1712.03965},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

11 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS