_version_ 1866909026981249024
author Byström, Amanda
Koposov, Sergey E.
Li, Ting. S.
Rockosi, Constance M.
Dey, Arjun
Thomas, Guillaume F.
Carlberg, Raymond G.
Gnedin, Oleg Y.
Kizhuprakkat, Namitha
Lambert, Mika
Mohammed, Nasser
Medina, Gustavo E.
Najita, Joan
Riley, Alexander H.
Sandford, Nathan R.
Silva, Leandro Beraldo e
Aguilar, Jessica N.
Ahlen, Steven
Bianchi, Davide
Brooks, David
Claybaugh, Todd
Cooper, Andrew P.
Cuceu, Andrei
de la Macorra, Axel
Doel, Peter
Forero-Romero, Jaime E.
Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A
Gutierrez, Gaston
Joyce, Richard
Juneau, Stephanie
Kremin, Anthony
Landriau, Martin
Guillou, Laurent Le
Meisner, Aaron
Miquel, Ramon
Percival, Will J.
Prada, Francisco
Pérez-Ràfols, Ignasi
Rossi, Graziano
Sanchez, Eusebio
Schlegel, David
Silber, Joseph H.
Tarlé, Gregory
Weaver, Benjamin A.
Zou, Hu
author_facet Byström, Amanda
Koposov, Sergey E.
Li, Ting. S.
Rockosi, Constance M.
Dey, Arjun
Thomas, Guillaume F.
Carlberg, Raymond G.
Gnedin, Oleg Y.
Kizhuprakkat, Namitha
Lambert, Mika
Mohammed, Nasser
Medina, Gustavo E.
Najita, Joan
Riley, Alexander H.
Sandford, Nathan R.
Silva, Leandro Beraldo e
Aguilar, Jessica N.
Ahlen, Steven
Bianchi, Davide
Brooks, David
Claybaugh, Todd
Cooper, Andrew P.
Cuceu, Andrei
de la Macorra, Axel
Doel, Peter
Forero-Romero, Jaime E.
Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A
Gutierrez, Gaston
Joyce, Richard
Juneau, Stephanie
Kremin, Anthony
Landriau, Martin
Guillou, Laurent Le
Meisner, Aaron
Miquel, Ramon
Percival, Will J.
Prada, Francisco
Pérez-Ràfols, Ignasi
Rossi, Graziano
Sanchez, Eusebio
Schlegel, David
Silber, Joseph H.
Tarlé, Gregory
Weaver, Benjamin A.
Zou, Hu
contents Stellar streams are excellent probes of the gravitational potential in which they evolve. In the Milky Way (MW), globular cluster (GC) streams are routinely used to infer properties about time-dependent perturbations of the underlying potential. This implies that streams with Galactocentric radii small enough to be perturbed by the MW bar should offer constraints on it, such as its pattern speed, which currently has a wide range of values reported in the literature and is important when studying stellar kinematics. The GC M92 has a small pericentre and should be affected by the bar. It has a diffuse stellar stream, but confirming stream members has previously been hindered by a lack of spectroscopic data. In this paper, we use Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) observations together with photometric and astrometric data to obtain spectroscopic members of the M92 stream for the first time. We identify a clear spatial distribution and gradients in distance moduli, proper motions, and radial velocities that confirm the stream's existence. We compare the observed stream to mock streams generated in different barred potentials and estimate the MW bar's pattern speed $Ω= 29.1^{+0.7}_{-0.4}$ km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$ and $\dot Ω= 0.7^{+3.5}_{-2.3}$ km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$ Gyr$^{-1}$. This is the first time a stellar stream is used to probabilistically infer these bar properties, and it opens up an exciting realm of inner Galactic potential characterisation using stellar streams.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_07918
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Constraining the Galactic bar using the M92 stellar stream
Byström, Amanda
Koposov, Sergey E.
Li, Ting. S.
Rockosi, Constance M.
Dey, Arjun
Thomas, Guillaume F.
Carlberg, Raymond G.
Gnedin, Oleg Y.
Kizhuprakkat, Namitha
Lambert, Mika
Mohammed, Nasser
Medina, Gustavo E.
Najita, Joan
Riley, Alexander H.
Sandford, Nathan R.
Silva, Leandro Beraldo e
Aguilar, Jessica N.
Ahlen, Steven
Bianchi, Davide
Brooks, David
Claybaugh, Todd
Cooper, Andrew P.
Cuceu, Andrei
de la Macorra, Axel
Doel, Peter
Forero-Romero, Jaime E.
Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A
Gutierrez, Gaston
Joyce, Richard
Juneau, Stephanie
Kremin, Anthony
Landriau, Martin
Guillou, Laurent Le
Meisner, Aaron
Miquel, Ramon
Percival, Will J.
Prada, Francisco
Pérez-Ràfols, Ignasi
Rossi, Graziano
Sanchez, Eusebio
Schlegel, David
Silber, Joseph H.
Tarlé, Gregory
Weaver, Benjamin A.
Zou, Hu
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Stellar streams are excellent probes of the gravitational potential in which they evolve. In the Milky Way (MW), globular cluster (GC) streams are routinely used to infer properties about time-dependent perturbations of the underlying potential. This implies that streams with Galactocentric radii small enough to be perturbed by the MW bar should offer constraints on it, such as its pattern speed, which currently has a wide range of values reported in the literature and is important when studying stellar kinematics. The GC M92 has a small pericentre and should be affected by the bar. It has a diffuse stellar stream, but confirming stream members has previously been hindered by a lack of spectroscopic data. In this paper, we use Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) observations together with photometric and astrometric data to obtain spectroscopic members of the M92 stream for the first time. We identify a clear spatial distribution and gradients in distance moduli, proper motions, and radial velocities that confirm the stream's existence. We compare the observed stream to mock streams generated in different barred potentials and estimate the MW bar's pattern speed $Ω= 29.1^{+0.7}_{-0.4}$ km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$ and $\dot Ω= 0.7^{+3.5}_{-2.3}$ km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$ Gyr$^{-1}$. This is the first time a stellar stream is used to probabilistically infer these bar properties, and it opens up an exciting realm of inner Galactic potential characterisation using stellar streams.
title Constraining the Galactic bar using the M92 stellar stream
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.07918