[147.02] In Search of the Stellar Spheroid, from SDSS and SEGUE

AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 147 Galactic Astronomy in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Special Session, Wednesday, 10:00-11:30am, January 11, 2006, Delaware A

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[147.02] In Search of the Stellar Spheroid, from SDSS and SEGUE

H.J. Newberg (Rensselaer)

We thought the stellar halo had a smooth density distribution. It doesn't. We were told the Sagittarius tidal stream was the only significant tidal stream out there. We found that it isn't. We thought the spheroid was axisymmetric. The data do not support this. We can't imagine why the stellar halo would not be centered on the center of the Galactic disk, though the data suggest this. Now we think the spheroid is composed of tidal debris in addition to a triaxial Hernquist profile. Clearly, even the vast quantity of data gathered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) is not yet enough to understand halo structure.

Research supported by NSF grant AST 03-07571. Data obtained from SDSS and SEGUE archives.

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