Related papers: Stream-orbit misalignment II: A new algorithm to c…
Tidal streams don't, in general, delineate orbits. A stream-orbit misalignment is expected to lead to biases when using orbit-fitting to constrain models for the Galactic potential. In this first of two papers we discuss the expected…
Recent years have seen the discovery of many tidal streams through the Galaxy. Relatively straightforward observations of a stream allow one to deduce three phase-space coordinates of an orbit. An algorithm is presented that reconstructs…
We present a brief history of Galactic astrophysics, and explain the origin of halo substructure in the Galaxy. We motivate our study of tidal streams by highlighting the tight constraints that analysis of the trajectories of tidal streams…
We explore the use of tidal streams from Galactic satellites to recover the potential of the Milky Way. Our study is motivated both by the discovery of the first lengthy stellar stream in the halo (\cite{it98}) and by the prospect of…
We present a generative probabilistic model for a tidal stream and demonstrate how this model is used to constrain the Galactic potential. The model takes advantage of the simple structure of a stream in angle and frequency space for the…
We describe a technique that finds orbits through the Galaxy that are consistent with measurements of a tidal stream, taking into account the extent that tidal streams do not precisely delineate orbits. We show that if accurate…
The Galaxy's stellar halo seems to be a tangle of disrupted systems that have been tidally stretched out into streams. Each stream approximately delineates an orbit in the Galactic force-field. In the first paper in this series we showed…
One of the most promising tracers of the Galactic potential in the halo region are stellar streams. However, individual stream fits can be limited by systematic biases. To study these individual stream systematics, we fit streams in Milky…
We present a data-driven method for reconstructing the galactic acceleration field from phase-space measurements of stellar streams. Our approach is based on a flexible and differentiable fit to the stream in phase-space, enabling a direct…
We develop a method for constraining the potential of the Milky Way using stellar streams with a known progenitor. The method expresses the stream in angle-action coordinates and integrates the orbits of the stars backwards in time to…
We present a new method for determining the Galactic gravitational potential based on forward modeling of tidal stellar streams. We use this method to test the performance of smooth and static analytic potentials in representing realistic…
We assess the practicality of computing the distance to stellar streams in our Galaxy, using the method of Galactic parallax suggested by Eyre & Binney (2009). We find that the uncertainty in Galactic parallax is dependent upon the specific…
Extended halo tidal streams from disrupting Milky Way satellites offer new opportunities for gauging fundamental Galactic parameters without challenging observations of the Galactic center. In the roughly spherical Galactic potential tidal…
We present a model for producing tidal streams from disrupting progenitors in arbitrary potentials, utilizing the idea that the majority of stars escape from the progenitor's two Lagrange points. The method involves releasing test particles…
We present a new method for constraining the Milky Way halo gravitational potential by simultaneously fitting multiple tidal streams. This method requires full three-dimensional positions and velocities for all stars to be fit, but does not…
Stream stars removed by tides from their progenitor satellite galaxy or globular cluster act as a group of test particles on neighboring orbits, probing the gravitational field of the Milky Way. While constraints from individual streams…
During the past 20 years, numerous stellar streams have been discovered in both the Milky Way and the Local Group. These streams have been tidally torn from orbiting systems, which suggests that most of them should roughly trace the orbit…
We analyze stellar streams in action-angle coordinates combined with recent local direct acceleration measurements to provide joint constraints on the potential of our Galaxy. Our stream analysis uses the Kullback-Leibler divergence with a…
We present an analysis of the mechanics of thin streams, which are formed following the tidal disruption of cold, low-mass clusters in the potential of a massive host galaxy. The analysis makes extensive use of action-angle variables, in…
In the coming decade the Gaia satellite will precisely measure the positions and velocities of millions of stars in the Galactic halo, including stars in many tidal streams. These streams, the products of hierarchical accretion of satellite…