Large Scale Structure in the Inner Milky Way

We study the structure of the inner Milky Way using the latest data release of the Vista Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) survey. VVV is a deep near-infrared, multi-colour (Z,Y,J,H, K s ) photometric survey with a coverage of 320 square degrees towards the bulge region. We use the photometric properties of red clump (RC) stars to build a high resolution (1′× 1′) extinction map which we use to de-redden the photometry. From the colour-magnitude diagrams we extract the red giant branch population to investigate its 3D density distribution in the central 4–12 kpc of the MW. In the very central regions of the bulge, at | l | ∘ and | b | ∘ , we find a high significance overdensity not described by a simple density model.