Structure of the Milky Way stellar halo out to its outer boundary with blue horizontal-branch stars

2018 
We present the structure of the Milky Way stellar halo beyond Galactocentric distances of $r = 50$~kpc traced by blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars, which are extracted from the survey data in the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP). We select BHB candidates based on $(g,r,i,z)$ photometry, where the $z$-band is on the Paschen series and the colors that involves the $z$-band are sensitive to surface gravity. About 450 BHB candidates are identified between $r = 50$~kpc and 300~kpc, most of which are beyond the reach of previous large surveys including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find that the global structure of the stellar halo in this range has substructures, which are especially remarkable in the GAMA15H and XMM-LSS fields in the HSC-SSP. We find that the stellar halo follows a power-law density profile with an index of $\alpha=3.68$ (3.40) with (without) these fields and its global axial ratio is $q = 1.86$ (0.76). Thus the stellar halo having an oblate shape may be significantly disturbed and be made in a prolate form by halo substructures, perhaps associated with the Sagittarius stream in its extension beyond $r \sim 100$~kpc. We do not see any sharp outer edge or rapidly falling density profile in the outer parts of the stellar halo, suggestive of recent accretion events in the last few Gyrs, although more BHB sample is required from further HSC-SSP survey to increase its statistical significance.
    • Correction
    • Source
    • Cite
    • Save
    • Machine Reading By IdeaReader
    67
    References
    18
    Citations
    NaN
    KQI
    []