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arXiv · 2007.05132

A Low-Mass Stellar-Debris Stream Associated with a Globular Cluster Pair in the Halo

Zhen Yuan·Jiang Chang·Timothy C. Beers·Yang Huang
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Abstract

There are expected to be physical relationships between the globular clusters (GCs) and stellar substructures in the Milky Way, not all of which have yet been found. We search for such substructures from a combined halo sample of SDSS blue horizontal-branch and SDSS+LAMOST RR Lyrae stars, cross-matched with astrometric information from $Gaia$ DR2. This is a sample of old stars which are also excellent tracers of structures, ideal for searching for ancient relics in the outer stellar halo. By applying the neural-network-based method StarGO to the full 4D dynamical space of our sample, we rediscover the Sagittarius Stream, and find the debris of the $Gaia$-Enceladus-Sausage (GES) and the Sequoia events in the outer halo, as well as their linkages with several GCs. Most importantly, we find a new, low-mass, debris stream associated with a pair of GCs (NGC 5024 and NGC 5053), which we dub LMS-1. This stream has a very polar orbit, and occupies a region between 10 to 20 kpc from the Galactic center. NGC 5024 (M53), the more-massive of the associated GC pair, is very likely the nuclear star cluster of a now-disrupted dwarf galaxy progenitor, based on the results from N-body simulations.

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Zhen Yuan, Jiang Chang, Timothy C. Beers, Yang Huang. 2020-07-10. A Low-Mass Stellar-Debris Stream Associated with a Globular Cluster Pair in the Halo. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213%2Faba49f

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