Mapping the three-dimensional density of the galactic bulge with VVV red clump stars
Christopher Wegg,Ortwin Gerhard +1 more
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In this paper, the authors measured the angle of the bar-bulge to the line-of-sight to be (27+-2)deg, where the dominant error is systematic arising from the details of the deconvolution process.Abstract:
The inner Milky Way is dominated by a boxy, triaxial bulge which is believed to have formed through disk instability processes. Despite its proximity, its large-scale properties are still not very well known, due to our position in the obscuring Galactic disk. Here we make a measurement of the three-dimensional density distribution of the Galactic bulge using red clump giants identified in DR1 of the VVV survey. Our density map covers the inner (2.2x1.4x1.1)kpc of the bulge/bar. Line-of-sight density distributions are estimated by deconvolving extinction and completeness corrected K-band magnitude distributions. In constructing our measurement, we assume that the three-dimensional bulge is 8-fold mirror triaxially symmetric. In doing so we measure the angle of the bar-bulge to the line-of-sight to be (27+- 2)deg, where the dominant error is systematic arising from the details of the deconvolution process. The resulting density distribution shows a highly elongated bar with projected axis ratios ~(1:2.1) for isophotes reaching ~2kpc along the major axis. Along the bar axes the density falls off roughly exponentially, with axis ratios (10:6.3:2.6) and exponential scale-lengths (0.70:0.44:0.18)kpc. From about 400pc above the Galactic plane, the bulge density distribution displays a prominent X-structure. Overall, the density distribution of the Galactic bulge is characteristic for a strongly boxy/peanut shaped bulge within a barred galaxy.read more
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References
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Morphology, near infrared luminosity, and mass of the galactic bulge from Cobe dirbe observations
E. Dwek,R. G. Arendt,M. G. Hauser,T. Kelsall,Carey M. Lisse,S. H. Moseley,Robert F. Silverberg,T. J. Sodroski,Janet Weiland +8 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used triaxial analytical functions to represent the volume emissivity of the source and confirmed the bar-like nature of the bulge and showed that triaxially Gaussian-type functions provide a better fit to the data than other classes of functions, including an axisymmetric spheroid.
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Understanding the kinematics of Galactic Centre gas
TL;DR: In this article, a coherent picture of the Galaxy's H I, CO and CS emissions in the region |l| ≤ 10°, |b| ≤ 0.5° is constructed.
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Reddening and extinction toward the galactic bulge from ogle-iii: the inner milky way's rv ∼ 2.5 extinction curve*
David M. Nataf,David M. Nataf,Andrew Gould,Pascal Fouqué,Pascal Fouqué,Oscar A. Gonzalez,Jennifer A. Johnson,Jan Skowron,Andrzej Udalski,Michał K. Szymański,M. Kubiak,Grzegorz Pietrzyński,Grzegorz Pietrzyński,Igor Soszyński,Krzysztof Ulaczyk,Łukasz Wyrzykowski,Łukasz Wyrzykowski,Radosław Poleski +17 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors combine VI photometry from OGLE-III with VISTA Variables in The Via Lactea survey and Two Micron All Sky Survey measurements of E(J? Ks ) to resolve the longstanding problem of the non-standard optical extinction toward the Galactic bulge.
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Morphology, photometry and kinematics of N‐body bars – I. Three models with different halo central concentrations
E. Athanassoula,A. Misiriotis +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the morphology, photometry and kinematics of the bars which have formed in three N-body simulations, and show that the disc dominates over the halo in the inner parts, even for model MH, for which the disc contributions were initially comparable in that region.
Journal ArticleDOI
Vvv dr1: the first data release of the milky way bulge and southern plane from the near-infrared eso public survey vista variables in the via lactea
R. K. Saito,Maren Hempel,Dante Minniti,Dante Minniti,Philip W. Lucas,Marina Rejkuba,Ignacio Toledo,Oscar A. Gonzalez,Javier Alonso-García,Mike Irwin,Eduardo Gonzalez-Solares,Simon Hodgkin,James R. Lewis,Nicholas Cross,Valentin D. Ivanov,Eamonn Kerins,Jim Emerson,M. Soto,E. B. Amôres,Sebastián Gurovich,I. Dékány,R. Angeloni,Juan Carlos Beamin,Márcio Catelan,Nelson Padilla,Manuela Zoccali,Manuela Zoccali,P. Pietrukowicz,C. Moni Bidin,Francesco Mauro,Doug Geisler,S. L. Folkes,Stuart E. Sale,Stuart E. Sale,Jura Borissova,Radostin Kurtev,Andrea Veronica Ahumada,Andrea Veronica Ahumada,M. V. Alonso,M. V. Alonso,A. Adamson,Julia Ines Arias,Reba M. Bandyopadhyay,Rodolfo H. Barbá,Rodolfo H. Barbá,Beatriz Barbuy,Gustavo Baume,Luigi R. Bedin,Andrea Bellini,Robert A. Benjamin,Eduardo Luiz Damiani Bica,Charles Jose Bonatto,Leonardo Bronfman,Giovanni Carraro,André-Nicolas Chené,André-Nicolas Chené,Juan J. Clariá,J. R. A. Clarke,Carlos Contreras,A. Corvillon,R. de Grijs,R. de Grijs,Bruno Dias,Janet E. Drew,C. Farina,Carlos Feinstein,E. Fernández-Lajús,Roberto Claudio Gamen,Wolfgang Gieren,Bertrand Goldman,Carlos González-Fernández,R. J. J. Grand,G. Gunthardt,Nigel Hambly,Margaret M. Hanson,Krzysztof G. Hełminiak,Melvin G. Hoare,L. Huckvale,Andrés Jordán,Karen Kinemuchi,A. Longmore,Martin Lopez-Corredoira,Martin Lopez-Corredoira,Thomas J. Maccarone,Daniel J. Majaess,Eric Martin,N. Masetti,Ronald E. Mennickent,I. F. Mirabel,Lorenzo Monaco,Lorenzo Morelli,Veronica Motta,T. Palma,M. C. Parisi,Quentin A. Parker,Quentin A. Parker,F. Peñaloza,Grzegorz Pietrzyński,Grzegorz Pietrzyński,Giuliano Pignata,Bogdan Popescu,Mike Read,A. F. Rojas,Alexandre Roman-Lopes,Maria Teresa Ruiz,Ivo Saviane,Matthias R. Schreiber,A. C. Schröder,Saurabh Sharma,Saurabh Sharma,Michael D. Smith,Laerte Sodré,Joseph J. Stead,Andrew W. Stephens,Motohide Tamura,C. Tappert,Mark Thompson,Elena Valenti,Leonardo Vanzi,Nicholas A. Walton,W. A. Weidmann,Albert A. Zijlstra +121 more
TL;DR: The ESO VISTA public survey VISTA variables in the V�a L�ctea (VVV) started in 2010 and is expected to run for about five years.