Synthetic observations of spiral arm tracers of a simulated Milky Way analog
Stefan Reissl, Jeroen M. Stil, En Chen, Robin G. Treß, Mattia C. Sormani, Rowan J. Smith, Ralf S. Klessen, Megan Buick, Simon C. O. Glover, Russell Shanahan, St… 展开作者
Stefan Reissl, Jeroen M. Stil, En Chen, Robin G. Treß, Mattia C. Sormani, Rowan J. Smith, Ralf S. Klessen, Megan Buick, Simon C. O. Glover, Russell Shanahan, Stephen J. Lemmer, Juan D. Soler, Henrik Beuther, James S. Urquhart, L. D. Anderson, Karl M. Menten, Andreas Brunthaler, Sarah Ragan, Michael R. Rugel
Context: The Faraday rotation measure (RM) is often used to study the magnetic field strength and orientation within the ionized medium of the Milky Way. Observations indicate a RM in the spiral arms that exceeds the commonly assumed range. This raises the question of under what conditions spiral arms create such strong RM. Aims: We investigate the effect of spiral arms on Galactic RMs through shock compression of the interstellar medium (ISM). It has recently been suggested that the Sagittarius spiral arm creates a strong peak in RM where the line of sight (LOS) is tangent to the arm, and that enhanced RM follows along an intersecting LOS. We seek to understand the physical conditions that give rise to this effect and the role of viewing geometry. Methods: We apply a MHD simulation of the multi-phase ISM in a Milky Way type spiral galaxy disk in combination with radiative transfer to evaluate different tracers of spiral arm structures. For observers embedded in the disk, dust intensity, synchrotron emission and the kinematics of molecular gas observations are derived to identify spiral arm tangents. RMs are calculated through the disk and evaluated for different observer positions. The observer's perspective is related to the parameters of the local bubble surrounding the observer. Results: We reproduce a scattering of tangent points for different tracers of about $6^\circ$ per spiral arm similar to the Milky Way. As for the RM, the model shows that compression of the ISM and associated amplification of the magnetic field in spiral arms enhances RM by a few hundred rad $m^{-2}$ on top of the mean contribution of the disk. The arm-inter-arm contrast in RM along the LOS is approximately 10 in the inner Galaxy, fading to ~2 in the outer Galaxy. We identify a shark-fin like pattern in the RM Milky Way observations as well as the synthetic data that is characteristic for spiral arms.
Generally, identifying the spiral arms of a spiral galaxy is not a hard task. However, defining the main characteristics, width and length of those structure is not a common task. Previous studies have used different tracers: Star clusters, Massers, H$α$. It was until recently that individual stars were used as tracers of spiral structures. The basic method of measuring the width of spiral arms assumes a Gaussian distribution around the mean concentration, either of gas or other tracer. In this work we use NGC 5236's stars as tracers. We estimated the surface stellar density of arms and inter-…
From the sun's location in the Galactic disk, one can use different arm tracers (CO, HII, thermal or ionized or relativistic electrons, masers, cold or hot dust, etc) to locate a tangent to each spiral arm in the disk of the Milky Way galaxy. We present a Master catalog of the astronomically observed tangents to the Galaxy's spiral arms, using different arm tracers from the literature. Some arm tracers can have slightly divergent results from several papers, so a mean is taken - see Appendix for CO, HII, and masers. The Master catalog of means currently consists of 63 mean tracer entries, spre…
The density wave theory predicted some physical offsets among different tracers of star formation. To test this prediction, here we compiled data on 40 galaxies searched observationally for a physical offset between spiral arm tracers, and found that 24 of them have a positive offset. In a spiral arm, an arm tracer in a region with a given temperature may be at a different location (offset) than an arm tracer in a region with a colder temperature. Some conditions are found to be necessary or sufficient in order to detect an offset between two arm tracers. To find the offset of a tracer from an…
We observe the density wave angular pattern speed OMEGA-p to be near 12 to 17 km / s / kpc, by the separation between a typical optical HII region (from the spiral arm dust lane) and using a HII evolution time model to yield its relative speed, and independently by the separation between a typical radio maser (from the spiral arm dust lane) with a maser model.
The Sun in not located in a major spiral arm, and sits in a small Local Arm (variously called arm, armlet, blob, branch, bridge, feather, finger, segment, spur, sub-arm, swath, etc). The diversity of names for the Local Arm near the Sun indicates an uncertainty about its shape or pitch or its extent from the Sun in each galactic quadrant, as well as an uncertainty about its origin. Here we extract data about the small Local Arm near the Sun, from the recent observational literature, over many arm tracers, and we use statistics in order to find the its mean extent from the Sun, its possible sha…
We use distant Blue Horizontal Branch stars with Galactocentric distances 16 < r/kpc < 48 as kinematic tracers of the Milky Way dark halo. We model the tracer density as an oblate, power-law embedded within a spherical power-law potential. Using a distribution function method, we estimate the overall power-law potential and the velocity anisotropy of the halo tracers. We measure the slope of the potential to be gamma ~ 0.4 and the overall mass within 50 kpc is ~ 4 x 10^11 M_sol. The tracer velocity anisotropy is radially biased with beta ~ 0.5, which is in good agreement with local solar neigh…
A direct observation of the spiral structure of the Galaxy is hindered by our position in the middle of the Galactic plane. We propose a method based on the analysis of the birthplaces of high Galactic latitude runaway stars to map the spiral arms and determine their dynamics. As a proof of concept, the method is applied to a local sample of early-type stars and a sample of runaways stars to obtain estimates of the pattern speed and the spiral arm's phase angle. We also estimate the performance of this method once the data gathered by Gaia, in particular for runaway stars observed on the other…
The spiral structure of our Milky Way has not yet been well outlined. HII regions, giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and 6.7-GHz methanol masers are primary tracers for spiral arms. We collect and update the database of these tracers which has been used in Hou, Han & Shi (2009) for mapping the spiral structure.
We analyze recent observations of the spiral arm width in the Milky Way, as a function of the galactic radius, and we compare this relation with the prediction from the density wave theory. We use the following method: in each spiral arm, we concentrate on the separation (or offset) between the starforming region (radio masers) near the shock front of a density wave, and the aged star region (diffuse CO gas) near the potential minimum of a density wave; we take this separation between these two tracers as the arm width. New results: we find a typical separation (maser to diffuse CO gas) near 2…
We carry out analyses of some parameters of the galactic spiral arms, in the currently available samples. We present a catalog of the observed pitch angle for each spiral arm in the Milky Way disk. For each long spiral arm in the Milky Way, we investigate for each individual arm its pitch angle, as measured through different methods (parallaxes, twin-tangent arm, kinematical, etc), and assess their answers. Second, we catalog recent advances in the cartography of the Galaxy (global mean arm pitch, arm number, arm shape, interarm distance at the Sun). We statistically compare the results over a…
From the Sun, a look at the edge of each spiral arm in our Milky Way (seen tangentially, along the line of sight) can yield numerous insights. Using different arm tracers (dust, masers, synchrotron emission, CO gas, open star clusters), we observe here for the first time an age gradient (about 12 +/-2 Myrs/kpc), much as predicted by the density wave theory. This implies that the arm tracers are leaving the dust lane at a relative speed of about 81 +/-10 km/s. We then compare with recent optical data obtained from the Gaia satellite, pertaining to the spiral arms.
An updated catalog of 205 observed tangents to the spiral arms (in Galactic longitudes) since 1980 is presented. This represents an addition of 80 arm tangents in 6 years (since 2016). Most arm tangents are observed at telescopes in the radio regime. In this study, the separation of each arm tracer from the dust lane is analyzed to obtain the relative speed away from the dust lane (an age gradient). Each arm tracer is observed to be separated from the dust lane, showing an age gradient of about 11.3 +/- 2 Myr/kpc across the spiral arm; this gives a relative speed away from the dust lane of abo…
We compare the observed radial velocity of different arm tracers, taken near the tangent to a spiral arm. A slight difference is predicted by the density wave theory, given the shock predicted at the entrance to the inner spiral arm. In many of these spiral arms, the observed velocity offset confirms the prediction of the density wave theory (with a separation between the maser velocity and the CO gas peak velocity, of about 20 km/s) - when the observed offset is bigger than the error estimates. The time to reach the next spiral arm is given.
An up-to-date overview of the recent history is given, aiming to present a helpful working guide to the literature and at the same time introduce key systems and observational results, starting from the Sun and going towards the Galactic Center and parts of the Zona Galactica Incognita, and beyond. We start by presenting an observational view of the Milky Way's disk plane (cartographic. dynamical, chemical cross-cut, magnetic). This included the four long spiral arms in the disk of the Milky Way (fig.1), their geometry (fig.2), component, velocity (fig.3), their widths and internal layers as w…
Some important predictions from 4 main models of spiral arm formation are tested here, using observational data acquired for the Milky Way galaxy. Many spiral arm models (density wave, tidal wave, nuclear Lyapunov tube, or dynamic transient wave) have some consistencies with some of the observations, and some inconsistencies. Our 4 tests consist of the relative locations and relative speeds of different arm tracers away from the dust lane, and the global arm pitch angle as obtained over two Galactic quadrants and several Galactic radii, as well as the arm's continuity of shape from Galactic qu…
There are many published values for the pitch angle of individual spiral arms, and their wide distribution (from -3 to -28 degrees) begs for various attempts for a single value. Each of the four statistical methods used here yields a mean pitch angle in a small range, between -12 and -14 degrees (table 7, figure 2). The final result of our meta-analysis yields a mean global pitch angle in the Milky Way's spiral arms of -13.1 degrees, plus or minus 0.6 degree.
The Milky Way spiral arms are well established from star counts as well as from the locus of molecular clouds and other young objects, however, they have only recently started to be observed from a kinematics point of view. Using the kinematics of thin disc stars in Gaia EDR3 around the extended solar neighbourhood, we create x-y projections coloured by the radial, residual rotational, and vertical Galactocentric velocities ($U,ΔV,W$). The maps are rich in substructures and reveal the perturbed state of the Galactic disc. We find that local differences between rotational velocity and the azimu…
Spiral arms shown by different components may not be spatially coincident, which can constrain formation mechanisms of spiral structure in a galaxy. We reassess the spiral arm tangency directions in the Milky Way through identifying the bump features in the longitude plots of survey data for infrared stars, radio recombination lines (RRLs), star formation sites, CO, high density regions in clouds, and HI. The bump peaks are taken as indications for arm tangencies, which are close to the real density peaks near the spiral arm tangency point but often have $\sim$ 1$^\circ$ offset to the interior…
The inference of the Milky Way halo mass requires modelling the phase space structure of dynamical tracers, with different tracers following different models and having different levels of sensitivity to the halo mass. For steady-state models, phase correlations among tracer particles lead to an irreducible stochastic bias. This bias is small for satellite galaxies and dark matter particles, but as large as a factor of 2 for halo stars. This is consistent with the picture that satellite galaxies closely trace the underlying phase space distribution of dark matter particles, while halo stars ar…
The spiral structure of the Milky Way is not yet well determined. The keys to understanding this structure are to increase the number of reliable spiral tracers and to determine their distances as accurately as possible. HII regions, giant molecular clouds (GMCs), and 6.7-GHz methanol masers are closely related to high mass star formation, and hence they are excellent spiral tracers. We update the catalogs of Galactic HII regions, GMCs, and 6.7-GHz methanol masers, and then outline the spiral structure of the Milky Way. We collected data for more than 2500 known HII regions, 1300 GMCs, and 900…
Trigonometric parallax measurements of nine water masers associated with the Local arm of the Milky Way were carried out as part of the BeSSeL Survey using the VLBA. When combined with 21 other parallax measurements from the literature, the data allow us to study the distribution and 3-dimensional motions of star forming regions in the spiral arm over the entire northern sky. Our results suggest that the Local arm does not have the large pitch angle characteristic of a short spur. Instead its active star formation, overall length (>5 kpc), and shallow pitch angle (~10 degrees) suggest that it …
To pinpoint the peak location of the synchrotron total intensity emission in a spiral arm, we use a map of the spiralarm locations (from the observed arm tangent). Thus In a typical spiral arm in Galactic Quadrant I, we find the peak of the synchrotron radiation to be located about 220 +/-40 pc away from the inner arm edge (hot dust lane) inside the spiral arm. While most of the galactic disk has a clockwise largescale magnetic field, we make a statistical analysis to delimitate more precisely the smaller reverse annulus wiith a counterclockwise galactic magnetic field. We find an annulus widt…
It is imperative to map the strength and distribution of feedback in galaxies to understand how feedback affects the galactic ecosystems. H$_2$O masers act as indicators of energy injection into the ISM. Our goal is to measure the strength and distribution of feedback traced by water masers in the Milky Way. We identify optical counterparts to H$_2$O masers discovered by the HOPS survey. The distribution and luminosities of H$_2$O masers in the Milky Way are determined using parallax measurements derived from the second Gaia Data Release. We provide evidence of a correlation between evolved st…
The spiral structure of our Milky Way Galaxy is not yet known. HII regions and giant molecular clouds are the most prominent spiral tracers. We collected the spiral tracer data of our Milky Way from the literature, namely, HII regions and giant molecular clouds (GMCs). With weighting factors based on the excitation parameters of HII regions or the masses of GMCs, we fitted the distribution of these tracers with models of two, three, four spiral-arms or polynomial spiral arms. The distances of tracers, if not available from stellar or direct measurements, were estimated kinetically from the sta…
In this paper we introduce a new method for analysing Milky Way phase-space which allows us to reveal the imprint left by the Milky Way bar and spiral arms on the stars with full phase-space data in Gaia Data Release 2. The unprecedented quality and extended spatial coverage of these data enable us to discover six prominent stellar density structures in the disc to a distance of 5 kpc from the Sun. Four of these structures correspond to the spiral arms detected previously in the gas and young stars (Scutum-Centaurus, Sagittarius, Local and Perseus). The remaining two are associated with the ma…
The ongoing interaction between the Milky Way (MW) and its largest satellite - the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) - creates a significant perturbation in the distribution and kinematics of distant halo stars, globular clusters and satellite galaxies, and leads to biases in MW mass estimates from these tracer populations. We present a method for compensating these perturbations for any choice of MW potential by computing the past trajectory of LMC and MW and then integrating the orbits of tracer objects back in time until the influence of the LMC is negligible, at which point the equilibrium appr…
We report the discovery of a young (${\rm age} \sim 130~{\rm Myr}$), low-mass ($M \sim 1200~{\rm M}_\odot$), metal-poor ($[{\rm Fe}/{\rm H}] \sim -1.1$) stellar association at a heliocentric distance $D \approx 29~{\rm kpc}$, placing it far into the Milky Way halo. At its present Galactocentric position $(R, z) \sim (23, 15)~{\rm kpc}$, the association is (on the sky) near the leading arm of the gas stream emanating from the Magellanic cloud system, but is located $\approx 60^\circ$ from the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) center on the other side of the Milky Way disk. If we assume that the clus…
The angular-momentum distribution of classical Cepheids in the outer Milky Way disc is bi-modal with a gap at $L_\mathrm{gap}=2950\,\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}\,\mathrm{kpc}$, corresponding to $R=13\,\mathrm{kpc}$, while no similar feature has been found in the general population of disc stars. We show that star formation in multiple spiral arm segments at the same azimuth leads to such multi-modality which quickly dissolves and only shows in young stars. Unlike other explanations, such as a 1:1 orbital resonance with the Galactic bar, this also accounts for the observed steepening of the ste…
Context. The physical processes driving the formation of Galactic spiral arms are still under debate. Studies using open clusters favour the description of the Milky Way spiral arms as long-lived structures following the classical density wave theory. Current studies comparing the Gaia DR2 field stars kinematic information of the Solar neighbourhood to simulations, find a better agreement with short-lived arms with a transient behaviour. Aims. Our aim is to provide an observational, data-driven view of the Milky Way spiral structure and its dynamics using open clusters as the main tracers, and…
Most of known RR Lyraes are type ab RR Lyraes (RRLab), and they are the excellent tool to map the Milky Way and its substructures. We find that 1148 RRLab stars determined by Drake et al.(2013) have been observed by spectroscopic surveys of SDSS and LAMOST. We derived radial velocity dispersion, circular velocity and mass profile from 860 halo tracers in our paper I. Here, we present the stellar densities and radial velocity distributions of thick disk and halo of the Milky Way. The 288 RRLab stars located in the thick disk have the mean metallicity of [Fe/H]$=-1.02$. Three thick disk tracers …
We report parallaxes and proper motions of three water maser sources in high-mass star-forming regions in the Outer Spiral Arm of the Milky Way. The observations were conducted with the Very Long Baseline Array as part of Bar and Spiral Structure Legacy Survey and double the number of such measurements in the literature. The Outer Arm has a pitch angle of 14.9 +/- 2.7 deg and a Galactocentric distance of 14.1 +/- 0.6 kpc toward the Galactic anticenter. The average motion of these sources toward the Galactic center is 10.7 +/- 2.1 km/s and we see no sign of a significant fall in the rotation cu…
This study extends to the structure of the Galaxy. Our main goal is to focus on the first spiral arm beyond the Perseus arm, often called the Cygnus arm or the Outer Norma arm, by appraising the distributions of the masers near the Cygnus arm. The method is to employ masers whose trigonometric distances were measured with accuracy. The maser data come from published literature, having been obtained via the existing networks (US VLBA, the Japanese VERA, the European VLBI, and the Australian LBA). The new results for Cygnus are split in two groups: those located near a recent CO fitted global mo…
Large-Scale Spiral Structure of the Milky Way Traced by Young Classical Cepheids
Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台）；China Three Gorges University（三峡大学）；University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）
We present the current standing of an investigation into the structure of the Milky Way. We use smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate the ISM gas in the Milky Way under the effect of a number of different gravitational potentials representing the spiral arms and nuclear bars, both fixed and time-dependent. The gas is subject to ISM cooling and chemistry, enabling us to track the CO and HI density. We use a 3D grid-based radiative transfer code to simulate the emission from the SPH output, allowing for the construction of synthetic longitude-velocity maps as viewed from the Earth. B…
We present an investigation into the morphological features of the Milky Way. We use smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate the interstellar medium (ISM) in the Milky Way under the effect of a number of different gravitational potentials representing spiral arms and bars, assuming the Milky Way is grand design in nature. The gas is subject to ISM cooling and chemistry, enabling us to track the evolution of molecular gas. We use a 3D radiative transfer code to simulate the emission from the SPH output, allowing for the construction of synthetic longitude-velocity (l-v) emission maps …
Morphological Statistic of Milky Way-like Galaxies
Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台）；School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学天文与空间科学学院）；Three Gorges University（三峡大学）；National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院国家天文台）；School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学天文与空间科学学院）
Dynamical models allow us to connect the motion of a set of tracers to the underlying gravitational potential, and thus to the total (luminous and dark) matter distribution. They are particularly useful for understanding the mass and spatial distribution of dark matter (DM) in a galaxy. Globular clusters (GCs) are an ideal tracer population in dynamical models, since they are bright and can be found far out into the halo of galaxies. We aim to test how well Jeans-Anisotropic-MGE (JAM) models using GCs (positions and line-of-sight velocities) as tracers can constrain the mass and radial distrib…
Isotropic and anisotropic wavelet transforms are used to decompose the images of the spiral galaxy M83 in various tracers to quantify structures in a range of scales from 0.2 to 10 kpc. We used radio polarization observations at λ6 cm and 13 cm obtained with the VLA, Effelsberg and ATCA telescopes and APEX sub-mm observations at 870 μm, which are first published here, together with maps of the emission of warm dust, ionized gas, molecular gas, and atomic gas. The spatial power spectra are similar for the tracers of dust, gas, and total magnetic field, while the spectra of the ordered magnetic …
Here we fitted a 4-arm spiral structure to the more accurate data on global arm pitch angle and arm longitude tangents, to get the start of each spiral arm near the Galactic nucleus. We find that the tangent to the 'start of the Sagittarius' spiral arm (arm middle) is at l= -17 degrees +/- 0.5 degree, while the tangent to the 'start of the Norma' spiral arm (arm middle) is at l= +20 degrees +/- 0.5 degree. Earlier, we published a compilation of observations and analysis of the tangent to each spiral arm tracer, from longitudes +23 degrees to +340 degrees; here we cover the arm tracers in the r…
The mass of the dark matter halo of the Milky Way can be estimated by fitting analytical models to the phase-space distribution of dynamical tracers. We test this approach using realistic mock stellar halos constructed from the Aquarius N-body simulations of dark matter halos in the $Λ$CDM cosmology. We extend the standard treatment to include a Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) potential and use a maximum likelihood method to recover the parameters describing the simulated halos from the positions and velocities of their mock halo stars. We find that the estimate of halo mass is highly correlated wit…
A campaign is described, open to participation by interested AAVSO members, of follow-up observations for newly-discovered Cepheid variables in undersampled and obscured regions of the Galaxy. A primary objective being to use these supergiants to clarify the Galaxy's spiral nature. Preliminary multiband photometric observations are presented for three Cepheids discovered beyond the obscuring dust between the Cygnus & Aquila Rifts (40 \le l \le 50 degrees), a region reputedly tied to a segment of the Sagittarius-Carina arm which appears to cease unexpectedly. The data confirm the existence of e…
The nature of the spiral structure of the Milky Way has long been debated. Only in the last decade have astronomers been able to accurately measure distances to a substantial number of high-mass star-forming regions, the classic tracers of spiral structure in galaxies. We report distance measurements at radio wavelengths using the Very Long Baseline Array for eight regions of massive star formation near the Local spiral arm of the Milky Way. Combined with previous measurements, these observations reveal that the Local Arm is larger than previously thought, and both its pitch angle and star for…
The study of the Milky Way structure is vital importance for a better understanding of the universe. This study digs deeper into the structure of Milky Way Galaxys with emphasis to its spiral arms. Multiple data sources were sought including the NASA websites. As found out, the Milky Way is a disk shaped galaxy composed of four spiral arms, two large and the rest are smaller. The spiral arms are regions of actively forming new stars dominated by young stars, dust and gas. Dust and gas are primary materials for the formation of new stars. This dust is also responsible for the reddish appearance…
We present the results of N-body models of the Milky Way and Large Magellanic Cloud system and study the kinematic reflex motion in the stellar halo owing to the barycentre displacement of the disc. In agreement with previous studies, we find that the Milky Way disc may be moving at 40 km/s relative to the barycentre prior to the Large Magellanic Cloud infall. The resulting reflex motion is visible in tangential velocities of the stellar halo as a simple dipole. The signal is strongest for stars with long dynamical times, identifiable in position-velocity data as stars with large apocentres, w…
RoadMapping is a dynamical modeling machinery developed to constrain the Milky Way's (MW) gravitational potential by simultaneously fitting an axisymmetric parametrized potential and an action-based orbit distribution function (DF) to discrete 6D phase-space measurements of stars in the Galactic disk. In this work we demonstrate RoadMapping's robustness in the presence of spiral arms by modeling data drawn from an N-body simulation snapshot of a disk-dominated galaxy of MW mass with strong spiral arms (but no bar), exploring survey volumes with radii 500pc<=r_max<=5kpc. The potential constrain…
We derive maps of the observed velocity of ionized gas, the oxygen abundance, and the extinction (Balmer decrement) across the area of the four spiral galaxies NGC36, NGC180, NGC6063, and NGC7653 from integral field spectroscopy obtained by the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey. We searched for spiral arms through Fourier analysis of the spatial distribution of three tracers (non-circular motion, enhancement of the oxygen abundance, and of the extinction) in the discs of our target galaxies. The spiral arms (two-armed logarithmic spirals in the deprojected map) are shown in…
The radial distance to the co-rotation radius Rcoro (where the angular speed of the gas and stars in orbit around the Galactic Centre is equal to the angular speed of the spiral arm pattern) has often been predicted (at various places), but not measured with a high precision. Here we test the locations of masers with respect to the Perseus arm (Table 1). Our analysis of the masers and HII regions near the Perseus arm (mostly located on the inner arm side, by about 0.4 kpc from the cold CO mid-arm) shows that the co-rotation Rcoro must be > 10.8 kpc from the Galactic Center (Figure 1). This imp…
Large stellar surveys are sensitive to interstellar dust through the effects of reddening. Using extinctions measured from photometry and spectroscopy, together with three-dimensional (3D) positions of individual stars, it is possible to construct a three-dimensional dust map. We present the first continuous map of the dust distribution in the Galactic disk out to 7 kpc within 100 pc of the Galactic midplane, using red clump and giant stars from SDSS APOGEE DR14. We use a non-parametric method based on Gaussian Processes to map the dust density, which is the local property of the ISM rather th…
Some galactic theories of spiral arms predict an offset between different tracers of star formation. Our goal here is to find such an offset between the observed location of radio masers and the location of the arms, using a recent 4-arm model fitted to the CO 1-0 gas. Our method here is to compare a recent global 4-arm spiral model (as fitted to the arm tangents in the observed broad CO 1-0 gas) with the recent results for the trigonometric distances of radio masers, for the main arms (Cygnus-Norma, Perseus, Sagittarius-Carina, Scutum, and Norma). Our results indicate that most radio masers a…
The structure and evolution of the spiral arms of our Milky Way are basic but long-standing questions in astronomy. In particular, the lifetime of spiral arms is still a puzzle and has not been well constrained from observations. In this work, we aim to inspect these issues using a large catalogue of open clusters. We compiled a catalogue of 3794 open clusters based on Gaia EDR3. A majority of these clusters have accurately determined parallaxes, proper motions, and radial velocities. The age parameters for these open clusters are collected from references or calculated in this work. In order …
