Related papers: Inferring Globular Cluster Initial Mass Function f…
Thin stellar streams originating from globular clusters are among the most sensitive tracers of low-mass dark-matter subhalos. Joint analysis of the entire population of stellar streams will place the most robust constraints on the…
The hierarchical model of galaxy formation predicts that the Milky Way halo is populated by tidal debris of dwarf galaxies and globular clusters. Due to long dynamical times, debris from the lowest mass objects remains coherent as thin and…
We use N-body simulations to model the 12 Gyr evolution of a suite of star clusters with identical initial stellar mass functions over a range of initial cluster masses, sizes, and orbits. Our models reproduce the distribution of…
The origins of most stellar streams in the Milky Way are unknown. With improved proper motions provided by Gaia EDR3, we show that the orbits of 23 Galactic stellar streams are highly clustered in orbital phase space. Based on their…
Dynamically cold stellar streams from tidally dissolved globular clusters (GCs) serve as excellent tools to measure the Galactic mass distribution and show promise to probe the nature of dark matter. For successful application of these…
The Gaia mission promises to deliver precision astrometry at an unprecedented level, heralding a new era for discerning the kinematic and spatial coordinates of stars in our Galaxy. Here, we present a new technique for estimating the age of…
Stellar dynamical model globular clusters are introduced into reconstituted versions of the dark matter halos of the Via-Lactea II (VL-2) simulation to follow the star cluster tidal mass loss and stellar stream formation. The clusters…
Thin halo star streams originate from the evaporation of globular clusters and therefore provide information about the early epoch globular cluster population. The observed tidal tails from halo globular clusters in the Milky Way are much…
Stellar streams provide one of the most promising avenues for constraining the global mass distribution of the Milky Way and the nature of dark matter (DM). The stream stars' kinematic "track" enables inference of large-scale properties of…
We discuss how to use tidal streams from globular clusters to measure the mass distribution of the Milky Way. Recent proper motion determinations for globular clusters from plate measurements and Hipparcos astrometry provide several good…
We apply the automatic stellar stream detection algorithm StarStream to Gaia Data Release 3 and identify 87 stellar streams associated with Galactic globular clusters (GCs), including 34 high-quality cases with median completeness and…
We present new constraints on the initial mass spectrum of the Galactic Old Halo globular clusters. This has remained poorly-known so far, as both an initial power-law mass spectrum and an initial lognormal mass function could have evolved…
Globular cluster (GC) streams, debris of stars that tidally stripped from their progenitor GCs, have densities that correlate positively with the GC mass loss rate. In this work, we employ a novel particle spray algorithm that can…
We have derived the mean proper motions and space velocities of 154 Galactic globular clusters and the velocity dispersion profiles of 141 globular clusters based on a combination of Gaia DR2 proper motions with ground-based line-of-sight…
Tidal streams of globular clusters are ideal tracers of the Galactic gravitational potential. Compared to the few known, complex and diffuse dwarf-galaxy streams, they are kinematically cold, have thin morphologies and are abundant in the…
We examine various implications from a dynamical and chemical model of globular clusters (GCs), which successfully reproduces the observed abundance patterns and the multiple populations of stars in these systems assuming chemical…
The Milky Way contains several distinct old stellar components that provide a fossil record of its formation. We can understand their spatial distribution and kinematics in a hierarchical formation scenario by associating the proto-galactic…
As a result of their internal dynamical coherence, thin stellar streams formed by disrupting globular clusters (GCs) can act as detectors of dark matter (DM) substructure in the Galactic halo. Perturbations induced by close flybys amplify…
We have determined stellar mass functions of 120 Milky Way globular clusters and massive LMC/SMC star clusters based on a comparison of archival Hubble Space Telescope photometry with a large grid of direct N-body simulations. We find a…
Stellar streams result from the tidal disruption of satellites and star clusters as they orbit a host galaxy, and can be very sensitive probes of the gravitational potential of the host system. We select and study narrow stellar streams…