Three-dimensional structure of the milky way dust: modeling of LAMOST data

TL;DR

This paper models the three-dimensional distribution of dust in the Milky Way using LAMOST data, revealing an exponential disk structure and identifying local substructures like the Gould Belt and Camelopardalis clouds.

Contribution

It provides a detailed 3D dust map of the Milky Way based on LAMOST data, including the global structure and local substructures, which is a novel comprehensive modeling effort.

Findings

The dust disk has a scale-length of 3,192 pc and a scale height of 103 pc.

The Sun is located 23 pc above the dust disk.

Two local dust substructures are identified near the solar position.

Abstract

We present a three-dimensional modeling of the Milky Way dust distribution by fitting the value-added star catalog of LAMOST spectral survey. The global dust distribution can be described by an exponential disk with scale-length of 3,192 pc and scale height of 103 pc. In this modeling, the Sun is located above the dust disk with a vertical distance of 23 pc. Besides the global smooth structure, two substructures around the solar position are also identified. The one located at $150^{\circ}<l<200^{\circ}$ and $-5^{\circ}<b<-30^{\circ}$ is consistent with the Gould Belt model of \citet{Gontcharov2009}, and the other one located at $140^{\circ}<l<165^{\circ}$ and $0^{\circ}<b<15^{\circ}$ is associated with the Camelopardalis molecular clouds.