With and without spectroscopy: Gaia DR2 proper motions of seven Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxies

TL;DR

This paper measures the proper motions of seven ultra-faint dwarf galaxies using Gaia DR2 data, providing first measurements for four and demonstrating a method that maximizes member star inclusion without prior spectroscopic data.

Contribution

It introduces a new iterative method for deriving galaxy proper motions from Gaia data that accounts for astrometric covariance and does not rely solely on spectroscopic membership.

Findings

Proper motions for seven UFDs, four measured for the first time.

Uncertainties around 0.1 mas/yr for mean proper motions.

Method reduces bias and maximizes member inclusion.

Abstract

We present mean absolute proper motion measurements for seven ultra-faint dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, namely Bo\"{o}tes III, Carina II, Grus II, Reticulum II, Sagittarius II, Segue 2 and Tucana IV. For four of these dwarfs our proper motion estimate is the first ever provided. The adopted astrometric data come from the second data release of the Gaia mission. We determine the mean proper motion for each galaxy starting from an initial guess of likely members, based either on radial velocity measurements or using stars on the Horizontal Branch identified in the Gaia ($G_{\rm BP}$-$G_{\rm RP}$,$G$) colour-magnitude diagram in the field of view towards the UFD. We then refine their membership iteratively using both astrometry and photometry. We take into account the full covariance matrix among the astrometric parameters when deriving the mean proper motions for these systems. Our procedure provides mean proper motions with typical uncertainties of $\sim0.1$ mas/yr, even for galaxies without prior spectroscopic information. In the case of Segue 2 we find that using radial velocity members only leads to biased results, presumably because of the small number of stars with measured radial velocities. Our procedure allows to maximize the number of member stars per galaxy regardless of the existence of prior spectroscopic information, and can therefore be applied on any faint or distant stellar system within reach of Gaia.