Observed kinematics of the Milky Way nuclear stellar disk region

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Zoccali, M., Rojas-Arriagada, A., Valenti, E., Ramos, R. Contreras, Valenzuela-Navarro, A., Salvo-Guajardo, C.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866913244769157120
author Zoccali, M.
Rojas-Arriagada, A.
Valenti, E.
Ramos, R. Contreras
Valenzuela-Navarro, A.
Salvo-Guajardo, C.
author_facet Zoccali, M.
Rojas-Arriagada, A.
Valenti, E.
Ramos, R. Contreras
Valenzuela-Navarro, A.
Salvo-Guajardo, C.
contents The nuclear region of the Milky Way is believed to host a nuclear stellar disk, co-spatial with the gaseous central molecular zone. Previous kinematical studies detected faster rotation for the stars belonging to the nuclear stellar disk, compared to the surrounding regions. We analyze the rotation velocity of stars at the nuclear stellar disk, and compare them with its analog in a few control fields just outside this region. We limit our analysis to stars in the red clump of the color magnitude diagram, in order to be able to relate their mean de-reddened luminosity with distance along the line of sight. We used a proper motion catalog, obtained from point spread function photometry on VVV images, to construct maps of the transverse velocity for these stars. We complemented our analysis with radial velocities from the 17th data release of the APOGEE survey. We find that the main difference between the nuclear stellar disk region and its surroundings is that at the former we see only stars moving eastward, which we believe are located in front of the Galactic center. On the contrary, in every other direction, we see the brightest red clump stars moving eastward, and the faintest ones moving westward, as expected for a rotating disk. We interpret these observations as being produced by the central molecular zone, hiding stars behind itself. What we observe is compatible with being produced by just the absence of the component at the back, without requiring the presence of a cold, fast rotating disk. This component is also not clearly detected in the newest release of the APOGEE catalog. In other words, we find no clear signature of the nuclear stellar disk as a distinct kinematical component.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_16800
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Observed kinematics of the Milky Way nuclear stellar disk region
Zoccali, M.
Rojas-Arriagada, A.
Valenti, E.
Ramos, R. Contreras
Valenzuela-Navarro, A.
Salvo-Guajardo, C.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
The nuclear region of the Milky Way is believed to host a nuclear stellar disk, co-spatial with the gaseous central molecular zone. Previous kinematical studies detected faster rotation for the stars belonging to the nuclear stellar disk, compared to the surrounding regions. We analyze the rotation velocity of stars at the nuclear stellar disk, and compare them with its analog in a few control fields just outside this region. We limit our analysis to stars in the red clump of the color magnitude diagram, in order to be able to relate their mean de-reddened luminosity with distance along the line of sight. We used a proper motion catalog, obtained from point spread function photometry on VVV images, to construct maps of the transverse velocity for these stars. We complemented our analysis with radial velocities from the 17th data release of the APOGEE survey. We find that the main difference between the nuclear stellar disk region and its surroundings is that at the former we see only stars moving eastward, which we believe are located in front of the Galactic center. On the contrary, in every other direction, we see the brightest red clump stars moving eastward, and the faintest ones moving westward, as expected for a rotating disk. We interpret these observations as being produced by the central molecular zone, hiding stars behind itself. What we observe is compatible with being produced by just the absence of the component at the back, without requiring the presence of a cold, fast rotating disk. This component is also not clearly detected in the newest release of the APOGEE catalog. In other words, we find no clear signature of the nuclear stellar disk as a distinct kinematical component.
title Observed kinematics of the Milky Way nuclear stellar disk region
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16800