Substructure in the Galactic Halo -- The Imaging Survey

Details Substructure in the Galactic Halo -- The Imaging Survey Substructure in the Galactic Halo -- The Imaging Survey

Aug 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001noao.prop..327m&link_type=abstract

NOAO Proposal ID #2001B-0327

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Scientific paper

The Galactic halo contains considerable substructure, but the detailed distribution of this structure and its fractional contribution to the halo - the information required to relate halo structure to galaxy formation models - remains poorly constrained. Since much of the evidence for halo substructure was serendipitously discovered, we have undertaken a systematic survey to identify and quantify the degree of kinematic substructure within the Galactic halo. The key first step of this effort involves photometric observations to identify halo field stars which we accomplish by using a variant of the Washington photometric system. Over the past two years of 4m imaging, we have found candidates in such numbers that the subset of spectroscopically- confirmed giants more than doubles the number of halo field red giants known out to 100 kpc from the sun. We propose MOSAIC imaging at CTIO and KPNO to complete (weather permitting) our 100 deg^2 survey by the end of the 2001B semester. Our models of an accreted halo suggest that a survey of this magnitude can discover evidence of substructure if as little as 25% of the stellar halo was formed by the accretion of individual, small fragments. We have independently identified the overdensity of stars discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, verifying empirically that our survey can detect halo substructure. The present proposal represents what we hope will be our last significant request for NOAO 4m time for this survey, weather permitting. Along with other reasons detailed in the proposal, this is why we do not request NOAO survey status.

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