The Galactic Bulge exploration IV.: RR~Lyrae stars as traces of the Galactic bar -- 3D and 5D analysis, extinction variation
Z. Prudil, A. Kunder, L. Beraldo e Silva, S. Gough-Kelly, M. Rejkuba, S. R. Anderson, V. P. Debattista, O. Gerhard, R. M. Rich, D. M. Nataf, A. J. Koch-Hansen, A. Savino, I. Dékány
We created new reddening maps and derived new extinction laws from visual to near-infrared passbands using improved RR~Lyrae period-absolute magnitude-metallicity relations, thus enabling distance estimates for individual bulge RR~Lyrae variables. The extinction law is most uniform in RIK and RJK and the distances to individual RR~Lyrae based on these colors are determined with an accuracy six and four percent, respectively. Using only the near-infrared passbands for distance estimation we inferred the distance to the Galactic center equal to djk = 8.2 +- 0.001(stat) +- 0.53(sys)pc after geometrical correction. We show that variations in the extinction law toward the Galactic bulge can mimic a barred spatial distribution in the bulge RR~Lyrae star population in visual passbands. This arises from a gradient in extinction differences along Galactic longitudes and latitudes, which can create the perception of the Galactic bar, particularly when using visual passband-based distances. A barred angle in the RR~Lyrae spatial distribution disappears when near-infrared passband-based distances are used, as well as when reddening law variations are incorporated in visual passband-based distances. The prominence of the bar, as traced by RR~Lyrae stars, depends on their metallicity, with metal-poor RR~Lyrae stars ([Fe/H]<-1.0dex) showing little to no tilt with respect to the bar. Metal-rich ([Fe/H]>-1.0dex) RR~Lyrae stars do show a barred/bulge signature in spatial properties derived using near-infrared distances, with an angle ι = 18 +- 5deg, consistent with previous bar measurements from the literature. The 5D kinematic analysis, primarily based on transverse velocities, indicates a rotational lag in RR~Lyrae stars compared to red clump giants. Despite variations in the extinction law, our kinematic conclusions are robust across different distance estimation methods.
We report the first estimate of the He abundance of the population of RR Lyrae stars in the Galactic bulge. This is done by comparing the recent observational data with the latest models. We use the large samples of ab type RR Lyrae stars found by OGLE IV in the inner bulge and by the VVV survey in the outer bulge. We present the result from the new models computed by Marconi et al. (2017), showing that the minimum Period for fundamental RR Lyrae pulsators depends on the He content. By comparing these models with the observations in a Period versus effective temperature plane, we find that the…
We present 947 radial velocities of RR Lyrae variable stars in four fields located toward the Galactic bulge, observed within the data from the ongoing Bulge RR Lyrae Radial Velocity Assay (BRAVA-RR). We show that these RR Lyrae stars exhibit hot kinematics and null or negligible rotation and are therefore members of a separate population from the bar/pseudobulge that currently dominates the mass and luminosity of the inner Galaxy. Our RR Lyrae stars predate these structures, and have metallicities, kinematics, and spatial distribution that are consistent with a "classical" bulge, although we …
We have analyzed a sample of 27,258 fundamental-mode RR Lyrae variable stars (type RRab) detected recently toward the Galactic bulge by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) survey. The data support our earlier claim that these metal-poor stars trace closely the barred structure formed of intermediate-age red clump giants. The distance to the Galactic center (GC) inferred from the bulge RR Lyrae stars is R_0=8.27+/-0.01(stat)+/-0.40(sys) kpc. We show that their spatial distribution has the shape of a triaxial ellipsoid with an major axis located in the Galactic plane and inclined…
I review the literature covering the issue of interstellar extinction toward the Milky Way bulge, with emphasis placed on findings from planetary nebulae, RR Lyrae, and red clump stars. I also report on observations from HI gas and globular clusters. I show that there has been substantial progress in this field in recent decades, most particularly from red clump stars. The spatial coverage of extinction maps has increased by a factor $\sim 100 \times$ in the past twenty years, and the total-to-selective extinction ratios reported have shifted by $\sim$20-25\%, indicative of the improved accura…
The distance to the Galactic center inferred from OGLE RR Lyrae variables observed in the direction of the bulge is Ro=8.1+-0.6 kpc. An accurate determination of Ro is hindered by countless effects that include an ambiguous extinction law, a bias for smaller values of Ro because of a preferential sampling of variable stars toward the near side of the bulge owing to extinction, and an uncertainty in characterizing how a mean distance to the group of variable stars relates to Ro. A VI-based period-reddening relation for RR Lyrae variables is derived to map extinction throughout the bulge. The re…
Radial velocities of 2768 fundamental mode RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) toward the Southern Galactic bulge are presented, spanning the southern bulge from -8 < l < +8 and -3 < b <-6. Distances derived from the pulsation properties of the RRLs are combined with Gaia proper motions to give constraints on the orbital motions of 1389 RRLs. The majority (~75%) of the bulge RRLs have orbits consistent with these stars being permanently bound to <3.5 kpc from the Galactic Center, similar to the bar. However, unlike the bulge giants, the RRLs exhibit slower rotation and a higher velocity dispersion. The high…
Low-mass, variable, high-velocity stars are interesting study cases for many aspects of Galactic structure and evolution. Until recently, the only known high- or hyper-velocity stars were young stars thought to originate from the Galactic centre. Wide-area surveys like APOGEE and BRAVA have found several low-mass stars in the bulge with Galactic rest-frame velocities larger than 350 km/s. In this study we present the first abundance analysis of a low-mass, RR Lyrae star, located close to the Galactic bulge, with a space motion of ~ -400 km/s. Using medium-resolution spectra, we derive abundanc…
We have analyzed the data on 16,836 RR Lyrae (RR Lyr) variables observed toward the Galactic bulge during the third phase of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE-III), which took place in 2001-2009. Using these standard candles, we show that the ratio of total to selective extinction toward the bulge is given by R_I=A_I/E(V-I)=1.080+/-0.007 and is independent of color. We demonstrate that the bulge RR Lyr stars form a metal-uniform population, slightly elongated in its inner part. The photometrically derived metallicity distribution is sharply peaked at [Fe/H]=-1.02+/-0.18, with …
The VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) is a near-IR time-domain survey of the Galactic bulge and southern plane. One of the main goals of this survey is to reveal the 3D structure of the Milky Way through their variable stars. Particularly the RR Lyrae stars have been massively discovered in the inner regions of the bulge ($-8^\circ \lesssim b \lesssim -1^\circ$) by optical surveys such as OGLE and MACHO but leaving an unexplored window of more than $\sim 47$ sq deg ($-10.0^\circ \lesssim \ell \lesssim +10.7^\circ$ and $-10.3^\circ \lesssim b \lesssim -8.0^\circ$) observed by the VVV Surv…
We present an upgrade of the OGLE Collection of RR Lyrae stars in the Galactic bulge and disk. The size of our sample has been doubled and reached 78 350 RR Lyr variables, of which 56 508 are fundamental-mode pulsators (RRab stars), 21 321 pulsate solely in the first-overtone (RRc stars), 458 are classical double-mode pulsators (RRd stars), and 63 are anomalous RRd variables (including five triple-mode pulsators). For all the newly identified RR Lyr stars, we publish time-series photometry obtained during the OGLE Galaxy Variability Survey. We present the spatial distribution of RR Lyr stars o…
Context. RR Lyrae stars are useful standard candles allowing one to derive accurate distances for old star clusters. Based on the recent catalogues from OGLE-IV and Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3), the distances can be improved for a few bulge globular clusters. Aims. The aim of this work is to derive an accurate distance for the following six moderately metal-poor, relatively high-reddening bulge globular clusters: NGC 6266, NGC 6441, NGC 6626, NGC 6638, NGC 6642, and NGC 6717. Methods. We combined newly available OGLE-IV catalogues of variable stars containing mean I magnitudes, with Clemen…
Radial velocities of fifteen double-mode bulge RR Lyrae (RR01) stars are presented, six of which belong to a compact group of RR01 stars in pulsation space, with the ratio of first-overtone period to fundamental-mode period, P_{fo}/P_{f}~0.74, and P_{f}~0.44. It has been suggested that these pulsationally clumped RR01 stars are a relic of a disrupted dwarf galaxy or stellar cluster, as they also appear to be spatially coherent in a vertical strip across the bulge. However, the radial velocities of the stars presented here, along with proper motions from Gaia DR2, show a large range of radial v…
We present a kinematical study of RR~Lyrae stars associated with two Oosterhoff groups in the Galactic bulge. We used data published in the first paper of the series, plus proper motions from the {\it Gaia} Data Release 2, and radial velocities from the literature. A 6D kinematical and spatial solution was obtained for 429 RR~Lyrae stars. We use a model of the Galactic gravitational potential to infer stellar orbits. We did not find a difference between the Oosterhoff groups in the individual components of the space velocity. We report that \textit{foreground} and \textit{background} stars wit…
We analyze the kinematics and spatial distribution of 15,599 fundamental-mode RR Lyrae (RRL) stars in the Milky Way bulge by combining OGLE-IV photometric data and Gaia DR2 proper motions. We show that the longitudinal proper motions and the line-of-sight velocities can give similar results for the rotation in the Galactic central regions. The angular velocity of bulge RRLs is found to be around $35$ km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$, significantly smaller than that for the majority of bulge stars ($50-60$ km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$); bulge RRLs have larger velocity dispersion (120$-$140 km s$^{-1}$) than yo…
A recent survey toward the Milky Way bulge has discovered two sequences of RR Lyrae stars on the period-amplitude diagram with a maximum period-shift of Δlog P = 0.015 between the two populations. Here we show, from our synthetic horizontal-branch models, that this period-shift is most likely due to the small difference in helium abundance (ΔY = 0.012) between the first and second-generation stars (G1 and G2), as is the case in our models for the inner halo globular clusters with similar metallicity ([Fe/H] = -1.1). We further show that the observed double red clump (RC) in the bulge is natura…
Galactic nuclei, like the one of the Milky Way, are extreme places with high stellar densities and, in most cases, hosting a supermassive black hole. One of the scenarios proposed for the formation of the Galactic nucleus is by merging of primordial globular clusters (Capuzzo-Dolcetta 1993). An implication of this model is that this region should host stars characteristically found in old Milky Way globular clusters. RR Lyrae stars are primary distance indicators, well known representatives of old and metal-poor stellar populations, and therefore regularly found in globular clusters. Here we r…
We present VIVACE, the VIrac VAriable Classification Ensemble, a catalogue of variable stars extracted from an automated classification pipeline for the Vista Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) infrared survey of the Galactic bar/bulge and southern disc. Our procedure utilises a two-stage hierarchical classifier to first isolate likely variable sources using simple variability summary statistics and training sets of non-variable sources from the Gaia early third data release, and then classify candidate variables using more detailed light curve statistics and training labels primarily from OGLE…
Aiming to extend the census of RR Lyrae stars to highly reddened low-latitude regions of the central Milky Way, we performed a deep near-IR variability search using data from the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) survey of the bulge, analyzing the photometric time series of over a hundred million point sources. In order to separate fundamental-mode RR Lyrae (RRab) stars from other periodically variable sources, we trained a deep bidirectional long short-term memory recurrent neural network (RNN) classifier using VVV survey data and catalogs of RRab stars discovered and classified by opti…
Deep near-IR images from the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) Survey were used to search for RR Lyrae stars in the Southern Galactic plane. A sizable sample of 404 RR Lyrae of type ab stars was identified across a thin slice of the 4$^{\rm th}$ Galactic quadrant ($295°< l < 350°$, $-2.24°< b < -1.05°$). The sample's distance distribution exhibits a maximum density that occurs at the bulge tangent point, which implies that this primarily Oosterhoff type I population of RRab stars does not trace the bar delineated by their red clump counterparts. The bulge RR Lyrae population does not ext…
The Galactic Bulge exploration I.: The period-absolute\,magnitude-metallicity relations for RR~Lyrae stars for $G_{\rm BP}$, $V$, $G$, $G_{\rm RP}$, $I$, $J$, $H$, and $K_{\rm s}$ passbands using $Gaia$ DR3 parallaxes
We present results from a study of ab-type RR Lyrae variables in the Large Magellanic Cloud using the extensive dataset from phase III of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). The metallicities of the RR Lyraes, determined from the periods and amplitudes of their light curves, reveal a statistically significant radial abundance gradient that is approximately one-half of what is seen in the disks of the Milky Way and M33. The RR Lyrae abundance gradient agrees with that of the old and metal-poor LMC globular clusters. The reddenings of the OGLE RR Lyraes have been calculated usin…
NGC 6441 is a bulge globular cluster with an unusual horizontal branch morphology and a rich population of RR Lyrae (RRL) and Type II Cepheid (T2C) variables that is unexpected for its relatively high metallicity. We present near-infrared (NIR, $JHK_s$) time-series observations of 42 RRL, 8 T2Cs, and 10 eclipsing binary candidate variables in NGC 6441. The multi-epoch observations were obtained using the FLAMINGOS-2 instrument on the 8-m Gemini South telescope. Multi-band data are used to investigate pulsation properties of RRL and T2C variables including their light curves, instability strip,…
Spectroscopic metallicities and first α-element abundances of RR Lyrae stars in Baade's Window
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile（智利天主教 Pontificia 大学）；Universidad de Santiago de Chile（智利圣地亚哥大学）；Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Astrophysics and Space Exploration (CIRAS)（天体物理与空间探索跨学科研究中心）；Università degli Studi di Bologna（博洛尼亚大学）；INAF（意大利国家天体物理研究所）；Max Planck Institute for Astronomy（马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所）；Universität Heidelberg（海德堡大学）；IAC – Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias（加那利天体物理研究所）；Universidad de La Laguna（拉帕尔马大学）；European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）
RR Lyrae stars being distance indicators and tracers of old population serve as excellent probes of the structure, formation, and evolution of our Galaxy. Thousands of them are being discovered in ongoing wide-field surveys. The OGLE project conducts the Galaxy Variability Survey with the aim to detect and analyze variable stars, in particular of RRab type, toward the Galactic bulge and disk, covering a total area of 3000 deg^2. Observations in these directions also allow detecting background halo variables and unique studies of their properties and distribution at distances from the Galactic …
We have combined optical and near-infrared data of known RR Lyrae (RRL) stars in the bulge in order to study the spatial distribution of its metal-poor component by measuring precise reddening values and distances of 7663 fundamental-mode RRL stars with high-quality photometry. We obtain a distance to the Galactic center of R0 = 8.33 +/- 0.05 +/- 0.14 kpc. We find that the spatial distribution of the RRL stars differs from the structures traced by the predominantly metal-rich red clump (RC) stars. Unlike the RC stars, the RRL stars do not trace a strong bar, but have a more spheroidal, central…
A clustering-based search for substructures in the Galactic plane and bulge using RR Lyrae stars as tracers
Université Côte d’Azur（蔚蓝海岸大学）；Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur（蔚蓝海岸天文台）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）；Laboratoire Lagrange（拉格朗日实验室）；Instituto de Astrofísica, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile（智利天主教宗座大学天体物理研究所）；Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Espacio y Física Teórica, Universidad Central de Chile（智利中央大学空间科学与理论物理研究中心）；Millennium Institute of Astrophysics（天体物理学千年研究所）
The RR Lyrae (RRL) rich globular cluster M 62 (NGC 6266) is one of the most massive globular clusters in the Milky Way, located in the dense region of the Galactic bulge, where dynamical processes that affect the survival of globular clusters are maximised. Using Gaia DR2 data we have found clear evidence for an excess of RRLs beyond the cluster tidal radius of M 62, associated partly with stars stripped into the Galaxy field. This is confirmed with new VVVX survey observations, that discard any differential reddening effect as the possible cause of the observed RRL density excess. We also det…
We used optical images acquired with the Wide Field Camera of the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the Hubble Space Telescope and near-infrared data from GeMS/GSAOI to construct a high-resolution extinction map in the direction of the bulge stellar system Liller 1. In spite of its appearance of a globular cluster, Liller 1 has been recently found to harbor two stellar populations with remarkably different ages, and it is the second complex stellar system with similar properties (after Terzan5) discovered in the bulge, thus defining a new class of objects: the Bulge Fossil Fragments. Because…
Detailed elemental abundance patterns of metal-poor ([Fe/H] ~ -1~dex) stars in the Galactic bulge indicate that a number of them are consistent with globular cluster (GC) stars and may be former members of dissolved GCs. This would indicate that a few per cent of the Galactic bulge was built up from destruction and/or evaporation of globular clusters. Here an attempt is made to identify such presumptive stripped stars originating from the massive, inner Galaxy globular cluster NGC~6441 using its rich RR Lyrae variable star (RRL) population. We present radial velocities of forty RRLs centered o…
We present a study of variable stars in globular cluster NGC 6401. The cluster is only $5.3\degr$ away from the Galactic centre and suffers from strong differential reddening. The photometric precision afforded us by difference image analysis resulted in improved sensitivity to variability in formerly inaccessible interior regions of the cluster. We find 23 RRab and 11 RRc stars within one cluster radius (2.4$\arcmin$), for which we provide coordinates, finder-charts and time-series photometry. Through Fourier decomposition of the RR Lyrae star light curves we derive a mean metallicity of [Fe/…
Three dimensional interstellar extinction maps provide a powerful tool for stellar population analysis. We use data from the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey together with the Besançon stellar population synthesis model of the Galaxy to determine interstellar extinction as a function of distance in the Galactic bulge covering $ -10 < l < 10$ and $-10 < b <5$. We adopted a recently developed method to calculate the colour excess. First we constructed the H-Ks vs. Ks and J-Ks vs. Ks colour-magnitude diagrams based on the VVV catalogues that matched 2MASS. Then, based on the temperature-c…
The central kiloparsecs of the Milky Way are known to host an old, spheroidal stellar population, whose spatial and kinematical properties set it apart from the boxy/peanut structure that constitutes most of the central stellar mass. The nature of this spheroidal population, whether a small classical bulge, the innermost stellar halo or a population of disk stars with large initial velocity dispersion, remains unclear. This structure is also a promising candidate to host some of the oldest stars in the Galaxy. Here we address the topic of the inner stellar spheroid age, using spectroscopic and…
We present the near-infrared observations of population II Cepheids in the Galactic bulge from VVV survey. We identify 340 population II Cepheids in the Galactic bulge from VVV survey based on their match with OGLE-III Catalogue. The single-epoch $JH$ and multi-epoch $K_s$ observations complement the accurate periods and optical $(VI)$ mean-magnitudes from OGLE. The sample consisting of BL Herculis and W Virginis subtypes is used to derive period-luminosity relations after correcting mean-magnitudes for the extinction. Our $K_s$-band period-luminosity relation, $K_s = -2.189(0.056)~[\log(P) - …
We used optical images acquired with the UVIS channel of the Wide Field Camera 3 on board of the Hubble Space Telescope to construct the first high-resolution extinction map in the direction of NGC 6440, a globular cluster located in the bulge of our Galaxy. The map has a spatial resolution of 0.5" over a rectangular region of about 160" X 240" around the cluster center, with the long side in the North-West/South-East direction. We found that the absorption clouds show patchy and filamentary sub-structures with extinction variations as large as $δ{\rm E}(B-V)\sim0.5$ mag. We also performed a f…
We derive the distance to the northern extension of the Sagittarius (Sgr) dwarf spheroidal galaxy from 203 Sgr RR0 Lyrae stars found in the MACHO database. Their distances are determined differentially with respect to 288 Galactic Bulge RR0 Lyrae stars also found in the MACHO data. We find a distance modulus difference of 2.41 mags at $l$ = 5$^{\circ}$ and $b$ = -8$^{\circ}$ and that the extension of the Sgr galaxy towards the galactic plane is inclined toward us. Assuming $\rm R_{GC}$ = 8 kpc, this implies the distance to these stars is $(m-M)_0$ = 16.97 $\pm$ 0.07 mags, which corresponds to …
This study's objective was to exploit infrared VVV (VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea) photometry for high latitude RRab stars to establish an accurate Galactic Centre distance. RRab candidates were discovered and reaffirmed ($n=4194$) by matching $K_s$ photometry with templates via $χ^2$ minimization, and contaminants were reduced by ensuring targets adhered to a strict period-amplitude ($ΔK_s$) trend and passed the Elorietta et al. classifier. The distance to the Galactic Centre was determined from a high latitude Bulge subsample ($|b|>4^{o}$, $R_{GC}=8.30 \pm 0.36$ kpc, random uncertainty i…
We have used photometric data on almost 91 000 fundamental-mode RR Lyrae stars (type RRab) detected by the OGLE survey to investigate properties of old populations in the Milky Way. Based on their metallicity distributions, we demonstrate that the Galaxy is built from three distinct old components: halo, bulge, and disk. The distributions reach their maxima at approximately [Fe/H]_J95 = -1.2, -1.0, and -0.6 dex on the Jurcsik's metallicity scale, respectively. We find that, very likely, the entire halo is formed from infalling dwarf galaxies. It is evident that halo stars penetrate the inner r…
The detailed structure of the Galactic bulge still remain uncertain. The strong difficulties of obtaining observations of stars in the Galactic bulge have hindered the acquisition of a kinematic representation for the inner kpc of the Milky Way. The observation of the 3-d kinematics in several low foreground extinction windows can solve this problem. We have developed a new technique, which combines precise stellar HST positions and proper motions with integral field spectroscopy, in order to obtain reliable 3-d stellar kinematics in crowded fields of the Galactic center. In addition, we prese…
We use the Vista Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) ESO public survey data to measure extinction values in the complete area of the Galactic bulge covered by the survey at high resolution. We derive reddening values using the method described in Paper I. This is based on measuring the mean (J-Ks) color of red clump giants in small subfields of 2' to 6' in the following bulge area: -10.3<b<+5.1 and -10<l<+10.4. To determine the reddening values E(J-Ks) for each region, we measure the RC color and compare it to the (J-Ks) color of RC stars measured in Baade's window, for which we adopt E(B-V)=0.5…
We use published OGLE LMC/SMC data to present comprehensive Period-Color (PC) and Amplitude-Color (AC) relations for both fundamental and overtone stars. For fundamental mode stars, we confirm earlier work that the minimum light extinction corrected PC relation in V-I has a shallow slope but with considerable scatter (LMC: $[0.093 \pm 0.019]$ with a standard deviation about this line of 0.116, SMC: $[0.055\pm0.058]$ with a standard deviation about this line of 0.099). We note the high scatter about this line for both the LMC and SMC: either there is some source of uncertainty in extinction or …
Improving reddening estimates for RR Lyrae stars in the Gaia bands: a machine learning approach to the PAC(Z) relation
INAF - Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna（意大利国家天体物理研究所博洛尼亚天文与空间科学观测站）；Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna（博洛尼亚大学物理与天文系）
Galactic interstellar extinction maps are powerful and necessary tools for Milky Way structure and stellar population analyses, particularly toward the heavily-reddened bulge and in the midplane. However, due to the difficulty of obtaining reliable extinction measures and distances for a large number of stars that are independent of these maps, tests of their accuracy and systematics have been limited. Our goal is to assess a variety of photometric stellar extinction estimates, including both 2D and 3D extinction maps, using independent extinction measures based on a large spectroscopic sample…
We present the discovery of 32 new double periodic variables (DPVs) located toward the Galactic bulge. We found these objects among the nearly half a million binary stars published by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment project. With this discovery, we increase the number of known DPVs in the Milky Way by a factor of 2. The new set of DPVs contains 31 eclipsing binaries and one ellipsoidal variable star. The orbital periods cover the range from 1.6 to 26 days, while long periods are detected between 47 and 1144 days. Our analysis confirms a known correlation between orbital and long p…
It has been suggested that the ratio of total-to-selective extinction RV in dust in the interstellar medium differs in the Galactic bulge from its value in the local neighborhood. We attempt to test this suggestion. The mid-infrared hydrogen lines in 16 Galactic bulge PNe measured by the Spitzer Space Telescope are used to determine the extinction corrected Hβ flux. This is compared to the observed Hβ flux to obtain the total extinction at Hβ. The selective extinction is obtained from the observed Balmer decrement in these nebulae. The value of RV can then be found. The ratio of total-to-selec…
Studies of the properties of the inner Galactic Bulge depend strongly on the assumptions about the interstellar extinction. Most of the extinction maps available in the literature lack the information about the distance. We combine the observations with the Besancon model of the Galaxy to investigate the variations of extinction along different lines of sight towards the inner Galactic bulge as a function of distance. In addition we study the variations in the extinction law in the Bulge. We construct color-magnitude diagrams with the following sets of colors: H-Ks and J-Ks from the VVV catalo…
We measure the extinction curve in the central 200 pc of M31 at mid-ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths (from 1928A to 1.5μm), using Swift/UVOT and HST WFC3/ACS observations in thirteen bands. Taking advantage of the high angular resolution of the HST WFC3 and ACS detectors, we develop a method to simultaneously determine the relative extinction and the fraction of obscured starlight for five dusty complexes located in the circumnuclear region. The extinction curves of these clumps (RV =2.4-2.5) are steeper than the average Galactic one (RV =3.1), but are similar to optical and near-infra…
We have used N-body simulations for the Milky Way to investigate the kinematic and structural properties of the old metal-poor stellar halo in the barred inner region of the Galaxy. We find that the extrapolation of the density distribution for bulge RR Lyrae stars, $ρ\sim r^{-3}$, approximately matches the number density of RR Lyrae in the nearby stellar halo. We follow the evolution of such a tracer population through the formation and evolution of the bar and box/peanut bulge in the N-body model. We find that its density distribution changes from oblate to triaxial, and that it acquires slo…
RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) are tracers of the Milky Way's fossil record, holding valuable information on its formation and early evolution. Owing to the high interstellar extinction endemic to the Galactic plane, distant RRLs lying at low Galactic latitudes have been elusive. We attained a census of 1892 high-confidence RRLs by exploiting the near-infrared photometric database of the VVV survey's disk footprint spanning $\sim$70$^\circ$ of Galactic longitude, using a machine-learned classifier. Novel data-driven methods were employed to accurately characterize their spatial distribution using spars…
Windows of low extinction in the Milky Way (MW) have been used along the past decades for the study of the Galactic structure and the stellar population across the inner bulge and disk. Here we report the analysis of another low extinction near-IR window discovered by the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea Survey. VVV WIN 1733$-$3349 is about half a degree in size and is conveniently located right in the MW plane, at Galactic coordinates $(l, b) = (-5.2, -0.3)$. The mean extinction of VVV WIN 1733$-$3349 is $A_{Ks} = 0.61\pm0.08$ mag, which is much smaller than the extinction in the surrounding…
Extinction law and stellar mass in the Nuclear Bulge from kinematically-selected red clump stars
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile（智利天主教庞蒂菲亚大学）；European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）；Excellence Cluster ORIGINS（ORIGINS卓越集群）；Universidad de Santiago de Chile（智利圣地亚哥大学）；Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Astrophysics and Space Exploration (CIRAS)（天体物理学与空间探索跨学科研究中心）；Max Planck Institute for Astronomy（马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所）；Universität Heidelberg（海德堡大学）；Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias（加那利群岛天体物理研究所）
