The Edge of the Milky Way Stellar Disk Revealed Using Clump Giant Stars as Distance Indicators

Abstract

We use the clump giants of the disk as standard candles calibrated from Hipparcos parallaxes in order to map their distribution with two new near-IR surveys of the Galactic plane: UKIDSS-GPS and VVV. We explore different selection cuts of clump giants. We conclude that there is an edge of the stellar disk of the Milky Way at R=13.9+/-0.5kpc along various lines of sight across the galaxy. The effect of the warp is considered, taking fields at different longitudes and above and below the plane. We demonstrate that the edge of the stellar disk of the Milky Way can now be mapped in the near infrared in order to test different models, and to establish our own place within the galaxy.

References in corpus (15)

• VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV): The public ESO near-IR variability survey of the Milky Way
• The UKIDSS Galactic Plane Survey
• Outer structure of the Galactic warp and flare: explaining the Canis Major over-density
• NON-AXISYMMETRIC STRUCTURES IN THE STELLAR DISKS OF GALAXIES
• Galactocentric Distance With the OGLE and Hipparcos Red Clump Stars
• Mapping the stellar structure of the Milky Way thick disk and halo using SEGUE photometry
• K-Band Calibration of the Red Clump Luminosity
• The Milky Way's external disc constrained by 2MASS star counts
• K-Band Red Clump Distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Truncations of stellar disk and warps of HI-layers in edge-on spiral galaxies
• The Edge of the Galactic Disc
• The Structure of the Outer Galactic Disc as revealed by IPHAS early A Stars
• The edge of the young Galactic disc
• Stellar Disk Truncations: Where do we stand ?
• Radial truncations in stellar discs in galaxies

Cited by in corpus (48)

• The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic and Integrated Properties
• 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
• The stellar population structure of the Galactic disk
• VVV Survey Near-Infrared Photometry of Known Bulge RR Lyrae stars: the Distance to the Galactic Center and Absence of a Barred Distribution of the Metal-Poor Population
• LAMOST Spectroscopic Survey of the Galactic Anti-centre (LSS-GAC): target selection and the first release of value-added catalogues
• Spectro-photometric distances to stars: a general-purpose Bayesian approach
• Gaia Early Data Release 3: The Galactic anticentre
• A population of eruptive variable protostars in VVV
• The inner Galactic bar traced by the VVV survey
• Flare in the Galactic stellar outer disc detected in SDSS-SEGUE data
• Milky Way demographics with the VVV survey. IV. PSF photometry from almost one billion stars in the Galactic bulge and adjacent southern disk
• Mapping the Milky Way with LAMOST III: Complicated spatial structure in the outer disc
• Milky Way demographics with the VVV survey. I. The 84-million star colour-magnitude diagram of the Galactic bulge
• Partly burnt runaway stellar remnants from peculiar thermonuclear supernovae
• Parallaxes of Star Forming Regions in the Outer Spiral Arm of the Milky Way
• Gravitational lensing of massive particles in Schwarzschild gravity
• Mapping the Milky Way with LAMOST I: Method and overview
• Mapping the outer bulge with RRab stars from the VVV Survey
• Massive open star clusters using the VVV survey I. Presentation of the data and description of the approach
• On Rings and Streams in the Galactic Anti-Center
• A new near-IR window of low extinction in the Galactic plane
• Tracing the tidal streams of the Sagittarius dSph, and halo Milky Way features, with carbon-rich long-period variables
• Massive open star clusters using the VVV survey II. Discovery of six clusters with Wolf-Rayet stars
• Extreme Infrared Variables from UKIDSS - I. A Concentration in Star Forming Regions
• Disk stars in the Milky Way detected beyond 25 kpc from its center
• Value-added catalogs of M type stars in LAMOST DR5
• Evolution along the sequence of S0 Hubble types induced by dry minor mergers. I - Global bulge-to-disk structural relations
• Recent Star Formation in the Leading Arm of the Magellanic Stream
• Evolution along the sequence of S0 Hubble types induced by dry minor mergers. II - Bulge-disk coupling in the photometric relations through merger-induced internal secular evolution
• Structure of the outer Galactic disc with Gaia-DR2
• Discovery of a mid-infrared protostellar outburst of exceptional amplitude
• Hidden in the Haystack: Low-luminosity globular clusters towards the Milky Way bulge
• The structure of the Milky Way based on unWISE 3.4$\mu$m integrated photometry
• On the Galactic rotation curve inferred from the Jeans equations Assessing its robustness using Gaia DR3 and cosmological simulations
• Searching for Milky Way twins: Radial abundance distribution as a strict criterion
• Tracing the structure of the Milky Way with detached eclipsing binaries from the VVV survey - I. The method and initial results
• Clustered Cepheid Variables 90 kiloparsec from the Galactic Center
• Deep PSF photometric catalog of the VVV survey data
• The Density Profile and Kinematics of the Milky Way with RR Lyrae Stars
• Variability and stellar populations with deep optical-IR images of the Milky Way disk: matching VVV with VLT/VIMOS data
• Time-Series Surveys and Pulsating Stars: The Near-Infrared Perspective
• Rediscovering the Galactic outer disk with LAMOST data
• The Milky Way thin disk structure as revealed by stars and young open clusters
• LB-1 is inconsistent with the X-ray source population and pulsar-black hole binary searches in the Milky Way
• Outer Regions of the Milky Way
• Evidence of distant spiral arms in the Galactic disk quadrant IV from VVV red clump giants
• Mapping the Milky Way with Gaia Bp/Rp spectra-IV: the broken and asymmetric density profile of the stellar disk traced by a large sample of red clumps
• The Sagittarius stellar stream embedded in a fermionic dark matter halo