Nearby Low-Mass Hypervelocity Stars

Abstract

Hypervelocity stars are those that have speeds exceeding the escape speed and are hence unbound from the Milky Way. We investigate a sample of low-mass hypervelocity candidates obtained using data from the high-precision SDSS Stripe 82 catalogue, which we have combined with spectroscopy from the 200-inch Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory. We find four good candidates, but without metallicities it is difficult to pin-down their distances and therefore total velocities. Our best candidate has a significant likelihood that it is escaping the Milky Way for a wide-range of metallicities.

5 pages; Contribution to proceedings for "The Milky Way Unravelled by Gaia" conference, Barcelona, Dec 2015

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