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Related papers: Weighing the Galactic disk using phase-space spira…

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In a series of papers we study the stellar dynamics of the grand design barred-spiral galaxy NGC~1300. In the first paper of this series we estimate the gravitational potential and we give it in a form suitable to be used in dynamical…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-19 C. Kalapotharakos , P. A. Patsis , P. Grosbol

We present ClearPotential, a data-driven, three-dimensional measurement of the gravitational potential of the local Milky Way using unsupervised machine learning, without the symmetry assumptions, specific functional forms, and binning…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-02-20 Eric Putney , David Shih , Sung Hak Lim , Matthew R. Buckley

We determine the Galactic potential in the solar neigbourhood from RAVE observations. We select red clump stars for which accurate distances, radial velocities, and metallicities have been measured. Combined with data from the 2MASS and…

Using three-dimensional stellar kinematic data from simulated galaxies, we examine the efficacy of a Jeans equation analysis in reconstructing the total disk surface density, including the dark matter, at the "Solar" radius. Our simulation…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-01-18 G. N. Candlish , R. Smith , C. Moni Bidin , B. K. Gibson

Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) travel from the Galactic Centre across the dark matter halo of the Milky Way, where they are observed with velocities in excess of the Galactic escape speed. Because of their quasi-radial trajectories, they…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-06-14 O. Contigiani , E. M. Rossi , T. Marchetti

We present an atlas and follow-up spectroscopic observations of 87 thin stream-like structures detected with the STREAMFINDER algorithm in Gaia DR3, of which 29 are new discoveries. Here we focus on using these streams to refine mass models…

We consider the problem of determining the Galaxy's gravitational potential from a star catalogue. We show that orbit-based approaches to this problem suffer from unacceptable numerical noise deriving from the use of only a finite number of…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-15 Paul J. McMillan , James J. Binney

We introduce a potentially powerful method for constraining or discovering a thin dark matter disk in the Milky Way. The method relies on the relationship between the midplane densities and scale heights of interstellar gas being determined…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-09-30 Eric David Kramer , Lisa Randall

The local dark matter density provides constraints on dark matter models and is of importance for experiments hoping to detect dark matter particles in the laboratory. The advent of extensive survey data calls for more complex physical…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-10-07 Laurin Söding , Ruben L. Bartel , Philipp Mertsch

The mass assembly history of the Milky Way can inform both theory of galaxy formation and the underlying cosmological model. Thus, observational constraints on the properties of both its baryonic and dark matter contents are sought. Here we…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-01-24 Elena M. Rossi , T. Marchetti , M. Cacciato , M. Kuiack , R. Sari

We characterize stellar, gas, and dark matter mass distributions for 17 nearby massive disk galaxies from the PHANGS sample. This allows us to compute the gravitational potential that vertically confines the interstellar gas and determines…

Most of the visible mass in a typical spiral galaxy is distributed in a thin disk, with a radial extent much larger than its thickness. While the planar disk structure, including non-axisymmetric features such as spiral structure, has been…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-07-04 Chanda J. Jog

We estimated the Galactic model parameters by means of a new approach based on the comparison of the observed space density functions per absolute magnitude interval with a unique density law for each population individually, and via the…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-10 S. Karaali , S. Bilir , E. Hamzaoglu

We construct the first comprehensive dynamical model for the high-quality subset of stellar kinematics of the Milky Way disc, with full 6D phase-space coordinates, provided by the Gaia Data Release 2. We adopt an axisymmetric approximation…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-04-24 Maria Selina Nitschai , Michele Cappellari , Nadine Neumayer

We apply the vertical Jeans equation to the Milky Way disk, in order to study non-axisymmetric variations in the thin disk surface density. We divide the disk plane into area cells with a 100 pc grid spacing, and use four separate subsets…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-06-05 Axel Widmark , Aneesh P. Naik

We update the method of the Holmberg & Flynn (2000) study, including an updated model of the Milky Way's interstellar gas, radial velocities, an updated reddening map, and a careful statistical analysis, to bound the allowed surface density…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-06-22 Eric David Kramer , Lisa Randall

We estimated the dynamical surface mass density (Sigma) at the solar Galactocentric distance between 2 and 4 kpc from the Galactic plane, as inferred from the observed kinematics of the thick disk. We find Sigma(z=2 kpc)=57.6+-5.8 Mo pc^-2,…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-20 C. Moni Bidin , G. Carraro , R. A. Mendez , W. F. van Altena

We estimated the dynamical surface mass density Sigma at the solar position between Z=1.5 and 4 kpc from the Galactic plane, as inferred from the kinematics of thick disk stars. The formulation is exact within the limit of validity of a few…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-04 C. Moni Bidin , G. Carraro , R. A. Mendez , R. Smith

We have mapped the number density and mean vertical velocity of the Milky Way's stellar disk out to roughly two kiloparsecs from the Sun using Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) and complementary photo-astrometric distance information from…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-12-14 Axel Widmark , Lawrence M. Widrow , Aneesh Naik

The gravitational potential of the Milky Way encodes information about the distribution of all matter -- including dark matter -- throughout the Galaxy. Gaia data release 3 has revealed a complex structure that necessitates flexible models…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-08-05 Taavet Kalda , Gregory M. Green