An extended Pal 5 stream in Gaia DR2

TL;DR

This paper extends the known extent of the Pal 5 tidal stream using Gaia DR2 data, revealing a longer and more symmetric tail, which can improve models of the Milky Way's gravitational potential.

Contribution

The study significantly increases the known length of the Pal 5 stream to about 30 degrees, including a newly detected leading arm segment, enhancing the potential for galactic modeling.

Findings

Extended Pal 5 stream to ~30 degrees with Gaia DR2

Detected a symmetric leading and trailing tail

Constraints on Galactic bar's influence on the stream

Abstract

We present the results of a detailed search for members of the Pal 5 tidal tail system in Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2). Tidal tails provide a sensitive method for measuring the current and past gravitational potential of their host galaxy as well as for testing predictions for the abundance of dark matter subhalos. The Pal 5 globular cluster and its associated tails are an excellent candidate for such analysis; however, only ~23 degrees of arc are currently known, with in particular the leading tail much shorter than the trailing. Using Gaia DR2 and its precise astrometry, we extend the known extent of the Pal 5 tail to ~30 degrees, 7 degrees of which are newly detected along the leading arm. The detected leading and trailing arms are symmetric in length and remain near constant width. This detection constrains proposed models in which the Galactic bar truncates Pal 5's leading arm. Follow-up spectroscopic observations are necessary to verify the candidate stream stars are consistent with the known tidal tails. If confirmed, this Pal 5 stream extension opens up new possibilities to constrain the Galactic potential.