Related papers: Galactic Stellar Halo Luminosity Function
We quantify the detectability of stellar Milky Way satellites in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 5. We show that the effective search volumes for the recently discovered SDSS--satellites depend strongly on their luminosity,…
The Galactic HII region luminosity function (LF) is an important metric for understanding global star formation properties of the Milky Way, but only a few studies have been done and all use relatively small numbers of HII regions. We use a…
The measurements of the possible gravitational microlensing events are analysed with a simple yet accurate disc--halo model of the Milky Way Galaxy. This comprises a luminous exponential disc embedded in a flattened dark matter halo with…
Using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Early Data Release and SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey scans of POSS-I plates we identify a sample of 2600 subdwarfs using reduced proper motion methods and strict selection criteria. This forms one of…
We present results for a galaxy-galaxy lensing study based on imaging data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Wide. From a 12 million object multi-colour catalogue for 124 deg^2 of photometric data in the u*g'r'i'z'…
Abridged: We estimate the distances to ~48 million stars detected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and map their 3D number density distribution in 100 < D < 20 kpc range over 6,500 deg^2 of sky. The data show strong evidence for a Galaxy…
We set new limits on the mass of the Milky Way, making use of the latest kinematic information for Galactic satellites and halo objects. In order to bind these sample objects to the Galaxy, their rest-frame velocities must be lower than…
RR Lyr stars are ideal massless tracers that can be used to study the total mass and dark matter content of the outer halo of the Milky Way. This is because they are easy to find in the light curve databases of large stellar surveys and…
We developed a new selection method of halo stars in the phase-space distribution defined by the three integrals of motion in an axisymmetric Galactic potential, ($E$, $L_z$, $I_3$), where $I_3$ is the third integral of motion. The method…
We report on new measurements of the luminosity function (LF) and mass function (MF) of field low-mass dwarfs derived from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 6 (DR6) photometry. The analysis incorporates ~15 million low-mass stars…
Milky Way's hot gaseous halo extends up to the Galactic virial radius ($\sim 200$ kpc) and contains a significant component of baryon mass of the Galaxy. The halo properties can be constrained from X-ray spectroscopic observations and from…
We use A-type stars selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release 9 photometry to measure the outer slope of the Milky Way stellar halo density profile beyond 50 kpc. A likelihood-based analysis is employed that models the ugr…
We present a spectroscopic sample of 910 distant halo stars from the Hypervelocity Star survey from which we derive the velocity dispersion profile of the Milky Way halo. The sample is a mix of 74% evolved horizontal branch stars and 26%…
We use ESA/Gaia astrometry together with SEGUE and LAMOST measurements of the GD-1 stellar stream to explore the improvement on the Galactic gravitational potential that these new data provide. Assuming a realistic universal model for the…
A catalog of 8472 white dwarf (WD) candidates is presented, selected using reduced proper motions from the deep proper motion catalog of Munn et al. 2014. Candidates are selected in the magnitude range 16 < r < 21.5 over 980 square degrees,…
RR Lyrae stars are standard candles with characteristic photometric variability and serve as powerful tracers of Galactic structure, substructure, accretion history, and dark matter content. Here we report the discovery of distant RR Lyrae…
The gravitational interaction between the Milky Way (MW) and the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) perturbs the MW halo's density and kinematics, encoding information about both galaxies' masses and structures. We present a suite of 2,848…
Rapid advance has been made recently in accurate distance measurements for nearby ($D < 11$ Mpc) galaxies based on the magnitude of the tip of red giant branch stars resolved with the Hubble Space Telescope. We use observational properties…
We use Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey data for 170 deg^2, recalibrated and transformed to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ugri photometric system, to study the distribution of near-turnoff main-sequence stars in the Galactic halo…
We use a particle tagging technique to dynamically populate the N-body Via Lactea II high-resolution simulation with stars. The method is calibrated using the observed luminosity function of Milky Way satellites and the concentration of…