From the Fire: A Deeper Look at the Phoenix Stream
Authors
Abbott, TMC
Andrade-Oliveira, F
Da Costa, LN
Pereira, MES
Everett, S
Ferrero, I
Gruendl, RA
Hinton, SR
Hollowood, DL
Morgan, R
Rodriguez-Monroy, M
Scarpine, V
Serrano, S
Swanson, MEC
Varga, TN
Publication Date
2022Journal Title
Astrophysical Journal
ISSN
0004-637X
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Volume
925
Issue
2
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Tavangar, K., Ferguson, P., Shipp, N., Drlica-Wagner, A., Koposov, S., Erkal, D., Balbinot, E., et al. (2022). From the Fire: A Deeper Look at the Phoenix Stream. Astrophysical Journal, 925 (2) https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac399b
Abstract
We use six years of data from the Dark Energy Survey to perform a detailed
photometric characterization of the Phoenix stellar stream, a 15-degree long,
thin, dynamically cold, low-metallicity stellar system in the southern
hemisphere. We use natural splines, a non-parametric modeling technique, to
simultaneously fit the stream track, width, and linear density. This updated
stream model allows us to improve measurements of the heliocentric distance
($17.4 \pm 0.1\,{\rm (stat.)} \pm 0.8\,{\rm (sys.)}$ kpc) and distance gradient
($-0.009 \pm 0.006$ kpc deg$^{-1}$) of Phoenix, which corresponds to a small
change of $0.13 \pm 0.09$ kpc in heliocentric distance along the length of the
stream. We measure linear intensity variations on degree scales, as well as
deviations in the stream track on $\sim 2$-degree scales, suggesting that the
stream may have been disturbed during its formation and/or evolution. We
recover three peaks and one gap in linear intensity along with fluctuations in
the stream track. Compared to other thin streams, the Phoenix stream shows more
fluctuations and, consequently, the study of Phoenix offers a unique
perspective on gravitational perturbations of stellar streams. We discuss
possible sources of perturbations to Phoenix including baryonic structures in
the Galaxy and dark matter subhalos.
Keywords
310, Galaxies and Cosmology, Cosmology, Dark matter, Stellar streams, Galaxy structure, Astronomy data modeling, Milky Way dynamics
Sponsorship
STFC (ST/T003081/1)
Identifiers
apjac399b, ac399b, aas35259
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac399b
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333495
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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