# Exploring Halo Substructure with Giant Stars. XV. Discovery of a Connection between the Monoceros Ring and the Triangulum-Andromeda Overdensity?

## TL;DR

This study analyzes spectroscopic data of the A13 structure, revealing its connection to the Monoceros Ring and Triangulum-Andromeda overdensity, suggesting a common origin related to the Milky Way's disk.

## Contribution

It provides the first spectroscopic confirmation of A13 as a coherent structure and links it to other known halo features, proposing a unified origin scenario.

## Key findings

- A13 has a velocity dispersion of less than 40 km/s.
- A13 is likely an extension of the Monoceros Ring.
- A13's kinematics connect it with the Triangulum-Andromeda overdensity.

## Abstract

Thanks to modern sky surveys, over twenty stellar streams and overdensity structures have been discovered in the halo of the Milky Way. In this paper, we present an analysis of spectroscopic observations of individual stars from one such structure, "A13", first identified as an overdensity using the M giant catalog from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey. Our spectroscopic observations show that stars identified with A13 have a velocity dispersion of $\lesssim$ 40 $\mathrm{km~s^{-1}}$, implying that it is a genuine coherent structure rather than a chance super-position of random halo stars. From its position on the sky, distance ($\sim$15~kpc heliocentric), and kinematical properties, A13 is likely to be an extension of another low Galactic latitude substructure -- the Galactic Anticenter Stellar Structure (also known as the Monoceros Ring) -- towards smaller Galactic longitude and farther distance. Furthermore, the kinematics of A13 also connect it with another structure in the southern Galactic hemisphere -- the Triangulum-Andromeda overdensity. We discuss these three connected structures within the context of a previously proposed scenario that one or all of these features originate from the disk of the Milky Way.