The Hough Stream Spotter: A New Method for Detecting Linear Structure in Resolved Stars and Application to the Stellar Halo of M31
Stellar streams from globular clusters (GCs) offer constraints on the nature of dark matter and have been used to explore the dark matter halo structure and substructure of our Galaxy. Detection of GC streams in other galaxies would broaden this endeavor to a cosmological context, yet no such stream...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2022-01-01
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| Series: | The Astrophysical Journal |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac4496 |
| _version_ | 1797645121795129344 |
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| author | Sarah Pearson Susan E. Clark Alexis J. Demirjian Kathryn V. Johnston Melissa K. Ness Tjitske K. Starkenburg Benjamin F. Williams Rodrigo A. Ibata |
| author_facet | Sarah Pearson Susan E. Clark Alexis J. Demirjian Kathryn V. Johnston Melissa K. Ness Tjitske K. Starkenburg Benjamin F. Williams Rodrigo A. Ibata |
| author_sort | Sarah Pearson |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Stellar streams from globular clusters (GCs) offer constraints on the nature of dark matter and have been used to explore the dark matter halo structure and substructure of our Galaxy. Detection of GC streams in other galaxies would broaden this endeavor to a cosmological context, yet no such streams have been detected to date. To enable such exploration, we develop the Hough Stream Spotter ( HSS ), and apply it to the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PAndAS) photometric data of resolved stars in M31's stellar halo. We first demonstrate that our code can re-discover known dwarf streams in M31. We then use the HSS to blindly identify 27 linear GC stream-like structures in the PAndAS data. For each HSS GC stream candidate, we investigate the morphologies of the streams and the colors and magnitudes of all stars in the candidate streams. We find that the five most significant detections show a stronger signal along the red giant branch in color–magnitude diagrams than spurious non-stream detections. Lastly, we demonstrate that the HSS will easily detect globular cluster streams in future Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope data of nearby galaxies. This has the potential to open up a new discovery space for GC stream studies, GC stream gap searches, and for GC stream-based constraints on the nature of dark matter. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T14:41:32Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-cb46b311bbd44a60b772ccaaa45f9c8e |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1538-4357 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T14:41:32Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | The Astrophysical Journal |
| spelling | doaj.art-cb46b311bbd44a60b772ccaaa45f9c8e2023-10-30T13:56:47ZengIOP PublishingThe Astrophysical Journal1538-43572022-01-01926216610.3847/1538-4357/ac4496The Hough Stream Spotter: A New Method for Detecting Linear Structure in Resolved Stars and Application to the Stellar Halo of M31Sarah Pearson0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0256-5446Susan E. Clark1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7633-3376Alexis J. Demirjian2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6491-8860Kathryn V. Johnston3https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6244-6727Melissa K. Ness4https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5082-6693Tjitske K. Starkenburg5https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2539-8206Benjamin F. Williams6https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7502-0597Rodrigo A. Ibata7https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3292-9709Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University , 726 Broadway, New York, NY 10003, USA; Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute , 162 5th Avenue, New York City, NY 10010, USAInstitute for Advanced Study , 1 Einstein Drive, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA; Department of Physics, Stanford University , Stanford, CA 94305, USA; Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology, P.O. Box 2450, Stanford University , Stanford, CA 94305, USAGeorgetown University , 37th and O Streets, N.W., Washington DC, USACenter for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute , 162 5th Avenue, New York City, NY 10010, USA; Columbia University , 550 West 120th Street, New York City, NY 10027, USAColumbia University , 550 West 120th Street, New York City, NY 10027, USACenter for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University , 1800 Sherman Avenue, Evanston, IL 60201, USADepartment of Astronomy, Box 351580, University of Washington , Seattle, WA 98195, USAObservatoire astronomique de Strasbourg, Université de Strasbourg , CNRS, UMR 7550, 11 rue de l’Université, F-67000 Strasbourg, FranceStellar streams from globular clusters (GCs) offer constraints on the nature of dark matter and have been used to explore the dark matter halo structure and substructure of our Galaxy. Detection of GC streams in other galaxies would broaden this endeavor to a cosmological context, yet no such streams have been detected to date. To enable such exploration, we develop the Hough Stream Spotter ( HSS ), and apply it to the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PAndAS) photometric data of resolved stars in M31's stellar halo. We first demonstrate that our code can re-discover known dwarf streams in M31. We then use the HSS to blindly identify 27 linear GC stream-like structures in the PAndAS data. For each HSS GC stream candidate, we investigate the morphologies of the streams and the colors and magnitudes of all stars in the candidate streams. We find that the five most significant detections show a stronger signal along the red giant branch in color–magnitude diagrams than spurious non-stream detections. Lastly, we demonstrate that the HSS will easily detect globular cluster streams in future Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope data of nearby galaxies. This has the potential to open up a new discovery space for GC stream studies, GC stream gap searches, and for GC stream-based constraints on the nature of dark matter.https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac4496Galaxy dark matter halosDark matter distributionCold dark matterGlobular star clustersStellar streamsGalaxy structure |
| spellingShingle | Sarah Pearson Susan E. Clark Alexis J. Demirjian Kathryn V. Johnston Melissa K. Ness Tjitske K. Starkenburg Benjamin F. Williams Rodrigo A. Ibata The Hough Stream Spotter: A New Method for Detecting Linear Structure in Resolved Stars and Application to the Stellar Halo of M31 The Astrophysical Journal Galaxy dark matter halos Dark matter distribution Cold dark matter Globular star clusters Stellar streams Galaxy structure |
| title | The Hough Stream Spotter: A New Method for Detecting Linear Structure in Resolved Stars and Application to the Stellar Halo of M31 |
| title_full | The Hough Stream Spotter: A New Method for Detecting Linear Structure in Resolved Stars and Application to the Stellar Halo of M31 |
| title_fullStr | The Hough Stream Spotter: A New Method for Detecting Linear Structure in Resolved Stars and Application to the Stellar Halo of M31 |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Hough Stream Spotter: A New Method for Detecting Linear Structure in Resolved Stars and Application to the Stellar Halo of M31 |
| title_short | The Hough Stream Spotter: A New Method for Detecting Linear Structure in Resolved Stars and Application to the Stellar Halo of M31 |
| title_sort | hough stream spotter a new method for detecting linear structure in resolved stars and application to the stellar halo of m31 |
| topic | Galaxy dark matter halos Dark matter distribution Cold dark matter Globular star clusters Stellar streams Galaxy structure |
| url | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac4496 |
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