Modeling Star counts in the Monoceros stream and the Galactic anti-centre

TL;DR

This study models star counts in the Milky Way's outer disc using Sloan data, showing that a flared disc can explain observations without invoking the Monoceros ring/stream, thus informing galaxy formation theories.

Contribution

It demonstrates that a flared disc model accounts for star counts in the outer Galaxy, reducing the need for an extra-galactic ring/stream explanation.

Findings

A flared disc with a start radius of 16 kpc and scale length of 4.5+/-1.5 kpc fits the data.

Star counts can be explained without requiring the Monoceros ring/stream.

Thick disc does not need a sharp cutoff to match observations.

Abstract

There is a continued debate as to the form of the outer disc of the Milky Way galaxy, which has important implications for its formation. Stars are known to exist at a galacto-centric distance of at least 20 kpc. However, there is much debate as to whether these stars can be explained as being part of the disc or whether another extra galactic structure, the so called Monoceros ring/stream, is required. To examine the outer disc of the Galaxy toward the anti-centre to determine whether the star counts can be explained by the thin and thick discs alone. Using Sloan star counts and extracting the late F and early G dwarfs it is possible to directly determine the density of stars out to a galacto-centric distance of about 25 kpc. These are then compared with a simple flared disc model. A flared disc model is shown to reproduce the counts along the line of sights examined, if the thick disc does not have a sharp cut off. The flare starts at a Galacto-centric radius of 16 kpc and has a scale length of 4.5+/-1.5 kpc. Whilst the interpretation of the counts in terms of a ring/stream cannot be definitely discounted, it does not appear to be necessary, at least along the lines of sight examined towards the anti centre.