The stellar kinematics in the solar neighborhood from LAMOST data

TL;DR

This study maps local stellar kinematics using LAMOST data, deriving solar motion, analyzing velocity dispersions, and identifying peculiar motions related to stellar temperature and vertical gradients.

Contribution

It introduces a velocity de-projection technique to derive 3D velocities from line-of-sight data for a large stellar sample, revealing new insights into stellar motions and gradients.

Findings

Derived solar motion with respect to local standard of rest.

Identified a net asymmetric motion in warmer stars.

Found vertical gradients of velocity dispersions and their correlation with stellar temperature.

Abstract

We use about 200,000 FGK type main-sequence stars from the LAMOST DR1 data to map the local stellar kinematics. With the velocity de-projection technique, we are able to derive the averaged 3 dimensional velocity and velocity ellipsoids using only the line-of-sight velocity for the stars with various effective temperatures within $100 < |z| < 500$ pc. Using the mean velocities of the cool stars, we derive the solar motion of ($U_{\!\odot}$, $V_{\!\odot}$, $W_{\!\odot}$)=(9.58$\pm2.39$, 10.52$\pm1.96$, 7.01$\pm1.67$)$km\,s^{-1}$ with respect to the local standard of rest. Moreover, we find that the stars with ${T}_{\rm eff}>6000$K show a net asymmetric motion of $\sim3 km\,s^{-1}$ in $\langle W\rangle$ compared to the stars with ${T}_{\rm eff}<6000$K. And their azimuthal velocity increases when $|z|$ increases. This peculiar motion in the warmer stars is likely because they are young and not completely relaxed, although other reasons, such as the resonance induced by the central rotating bar or the spiral structures, and the perturbation of the merging dwarf galaxies, can not be ruled out. The derived velocity dispersions and cross terms for the data are approximately consistent with previous studies. We also find that the vertical gradients of $\sigma_{U}$ and $\sigma_V$ are larger than that of $\sigma_W$ . And the vertical gradient of $\sigma_U$ shows clear correlation with ${T}_{\rm eff}$, while the other two do not. Finally, our sample shows vertex deviation of about 11$^\circ$, at $300 < |z| < 500$pc, but roughly zero at $100 < |z| < 300$pc.