A Blueprint for the Milky Way's Stellar Populations: The Power of Large Photometric and Astrometric Surveys

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new photometric method to analyze the Milky Way's stellar populations, revealing complex substructures and offering a comprehensive alternative to spectroscopic surveys for studying galactic components.

Contribution

It presents a calibrated technique to derive stellar metallicities from broad-band photometry, enabling large-scale, less-biased mapping of stellar populations in the Milky Way.

Findings

Distinct stellar components separated in metallicity vs. rotation-velocity space

Inner-halo stars show complex, multi-peaked metallicity distributions

Substructures in the stellar populations highlight the galaxy's formation history

Abstract

Recent advances from astronomical surveys have revealed spatial, chemical, and kinematical inhomogeneities in the inner region of the stellar halo of the Milky Way Galaxy. In particular, large spectroscopic surveys, combined with Gaia astrometric data, have provided powerful tools for analyzing the detailed abundances and accurate kinematics for individual stars. Despite these noteworthy efforts, however, spectroscopic samples are typically limited by the numbers of stars considered; their analysis and interpretation are also hampered by the complex selection functions that are often employed. Here we present a powerful alternative approach $-$ a synoptic view of the spatial, chemical, and kinematical distributions of stars in the Milky Way based on large photometric survey databases, enabled by a well-calibrated technique for obtaining individual stellar metal abundances from broad-band photometry. We combine metallicities with accurate proper motions from the Gaia mission along the Prime Meridian of the Galaxy, and find that various stellar components are clearly separated from each other in the metallicity versus rotation-velocity space. The observed metallicity distribution of the inner-halo stars deviates from the traditional single-peaked distribution, and exhibits complex substructures comprising varying contributions from individual stellar populations, sometimes with striking double peaks at low metallicities. The substructures revealed from our less-biased, comprehensive maps demonstrate the clear advantages of this approach, which can be built upon by future mixed-band and broad-band photometric surveys, and used as a blueprint for identifying the stars of greatest interest for upcoming spectroscopic studies.