Preliminary Target Selection for the DESI Milky Way Survey (MWS)

Carlos Allende Prieto (1; 2); Andrew P. Cooper (3); Arjun Dey (4),; Boris T. G\"ansicke (5); Sergey E. Koposov (6; 7; 8); Ting Li (9; 10),; Christopher Manser (5); David L. Nidever (4; 11); Constance Rockosi (12; 13),; Mei-Yu Wang (7; 14); David S. Aguado (8); Robert Blum (15); David Brooks; (16); Daniel J. Eisenstein (17); Yutong Duan (18); Sarah Eftekharzadeh (19),; Enrique Gazta\~naga (20; 21); Robert Kehoe (22); Martin Landriau (23),; Chien-Hsiu Lee (4); Michael E. Levi (23) Aaron M. Meisner (4); Adam D. Myers; (24); Joan Najita (4); Knut Olsen (25); Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille (26),; Claire Poppett (23; 27); Francisco Prada (28); David J. Schlegel (23),; Michael Schubnell (29); Gregory Tarl\'e (29); Monica Valluri (30); Risa H.; Wechsler (31; 32); Christophe Y\`eche (26) ((1) Instituto de Astrof\'isica de; Canarias; (2) Universidad de La Laguna; (3) National Tsing Hua University.; (4) NSF's NOIRLab; (5) Department of Physics; University of Warwick; (6); Institute for Astronomy; University of Edinburgh; (7) McWilliams Center for; Cosmology; Carnegie Mellon University; (8) Institute of Astronomy; University; of Cambridge; (9) Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science; (10); Department of Astrophysical Sciences; Princeton University; (11) Department; of Physics; Montana State University; (12) Department of Astronomy and; Astrophysics; University of California Santa Cruz; (13) University of; California Observatories; (14) Department of Physics; Carnegie Mellon; University; (15) Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NSF's NOIRLab; (16) Department of; Physics; Astronomy; University College London; (17) Harvard-Smithsonian; Center for Astrophysics; (18) Physics Department; Boston University; (19); Department of Physics; Astronomy; The University of Utah; (20) Institute; of Space Sciences (ICE; CSIC); (21) Institut d' Estudis Espacials de; Catalunya (IEEC); (22) Department of Physics; Southern Methodist University,; (23) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; (24) University of Wyoming; (25); Community Science; Data Center/NSF's NOIRLab; (26) IRFU; CEA; Universit\'e; Paris-Saclay; (28) Instituto de Astrofisica de Andaluc\'ia; (29) Department; of Physics; University of Michigan; (30) Department of Astronomy; University; of Michigan; (31) Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics; Cosmology and; Department of Physics; (32) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

arXiv:2010.11284·astro-ph.GA·November 6, 2020

Preliminary Target Selection for the DESI Milky Way Survey (MWS)

Carlos Allende Prieto (1, 2), Andrew P. Cooper (3), Arjun Dey (4),, Boris T. G\"ansicke (5), Sergey E. Koposov (6, 7, 8), Ting Li (9, 10),, Christopher Manser (5), David L. Nidever (4, 11), Constance Rockosi (12, 13),, Mei-Yu Wang (7, 14), David S. Aguado (8), Robert Blum (15)

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TL;DR

The paper discusses the initial target selection process for the DESI Milky Way Survey, which aims to observe over 8 million stars to study the Galaxy's structure, composition, and dark matter distribution.

Contribution

It introduces a preliminary target selection catalog for the DESI MWS, facilitating large-scale stellar observations and Galactic studies.

Findings

01

Target catalog is publicly available.

02

Enables detailed Galactic structure analysis.

03

Supports discovery of rare stellar types.

Abstract

The DESI Milky Way Survey (MWS) will observe $\geq$ 8 million stars between $16 < r < 19$ mag, supplemented by observations of brighter targets under poor observing conditions. The survey will permit an accurate determination of stellar kinematics and population gradients; characterize diffuse substructure in the thick disk and stellar halo; enable the discovery of extremely metal-poor stars and other rare stellar types; and improve constraints on the Galaxy's 3D dark matter distribution from halo star kinematics. MWS will also enable a detailed characterization of the stellar populations within 100 pc of the Sun, including a complete census of white dwarfs. The target catalog from the preliminary selection described here is public.

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