On the Shoulders of Giants: Properties of the Stellar Halo and the Milky Way Mass Distribution

@article{Kafle2014OnTS,
  title={On the Shoulders of Giants: Properties of the Stellar Halo and the Milky Way Mass Distribution},
  author={Prajwal R Kafle and Sanjib Sharma and Geraint F. Lewis and Joss Bland-Hawthorn},
  journal={The Astrophysical Journal},
  year={2014},
  volume={794},
  pages={59}
}
Halo stars orbit within the potential of the Milky Way, and hence their kinematics can be used to understand the underlying mass distribution. However, the inferred mass distribution depends sensitively on assumptions made on the density and the velocity anisotropy profiles of the tracer population. Also, there is a degeneracy between the parameters of the halo and those of the disk or bulge. Most previous attempts that use halo stars have made arbitrary assumptions about these. In this paper… Expand
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The Milky Way, the Galactic Halo, and the Halos of Galaxies
  • O. Gerhard
  • Physics
  • Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union
  • 2015
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