Offsets of masers with respect to the middle of the Perseus arm, and the co-rotation radius in the Milky Way

TL;DR

This study uses maser and HII region data to precisely estimate the Milky Way's co-rotation radius, finding it to be around 12 kpc, which constrains the spiral pattern's angular rotation speed.

Contribution

It provides the first high-precision measurement of the co-rotation radius in the Milky Way using maser offsets, refining the understanding of spiral arm dynamics.

Findings

Co-rotation radius > 10.8 kpc from Galactic Center

Spiral pattern angular rotation speed < 21.3 km/s/kpc

Mean co-rotation radius around 12 kpc

Abstract

The radial distance to the co-rotation radius Rcoro (where the angular speed of the gas and stars in orbit around the Galactic Centre is equal to the angular speed of the spiral arm pattern) has often been predicted (at various places), but not measured with a high precision. Here we test the locations of masers with respect to the Perseus arm (Table 1). Our analysis of the masers and HII regions near the Perseus arm (mostly located on the inner arm side, by about 0.4 kpc from the cold CO mid-arm) shows that the co-rotation Rcoro must be > 10.8 kpc from the Galactic Center (Figure 1). This implies that the angular rotation speed of the spiral pattern < 21.3 km/s/kpc. Another test in galactic quadrant II shows that the radial velocity of the masers are generally more negative than that of the CO mid-arm (Figure 2), indicating a deceleration with respect to the CO mid-arm, by about 9 km/s. This implies that a spiral pattern angular rotation < 20.7 km/s/kpc, and thus Rcoro > 11.1 kpc. Finally, comparing our results with other published results (Table 2), we find a statistical mean co-rotation radius Rcoro predicted to be near 12 kpc from the Galactic Center (beyond the Perseus arm; before the Cygnus arm), and a mean angular spiral pattern angular rotation predicted to be near 19 km/s/kpc.