Galaxy rotation curve based on RGB stars from the Gaia DR3 catalogue

TL;DR

This study constructs a detailed Milky Way rotation curve out to 20 kpc using Gaia DR3 RGB star data, minimizing model assumptions and systematics, and finds a circular velocity at the Sun consistent with previous estimates.

Contribution

It provides a new, model-minimized rotation curve of the Milky Way based solely on Gaia DR3 data, extending previous work to larger galactocentric distances.

Findings

Circular velocity at Sun: 229.63 km/s

Average slope of rotation curve: -2.29 km/s/kpc

Rotation curve features near 13 and 18 kpc

Abstract

In this paper, we construct a detailed circular velocity curve of the Milky Way out to 20 kpc based on the radial component of the Jeans equation in cylindrical coordinates, assuming an axisymmetric gravitational potential, and show its dependence on azimuth. We use only Gaia DR3 data and aim to minimize the use of model data and various assumptions. To build the rotation curves, we used a sample of 4,547,980 RGB stars with measured spatial velocities, covering the Galactic plane in the range of Galactocentric cylindrical coordinates $150^\circ < \theta < 210^\circ$ and 0 < R < 20 kpc. We exclude systematics in the data that may arise from neglecting higher-order moments of the velocity distribution and their dispersions, as well as due to random measurement errors in Gaia. At the distance of the Sun, the circular velocity $V_{\rm c}(R_0)$ turned out to be ($229.63\pm0.30$) km s$^{-1}$, which is in good agreement with many previous estimates. The average slope of the circular velocity is $(-2.29\pm0.05)$ km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$ obtained in the range of $R$ from 6 to 20 kpc and $\theta$ from 150 to 210 degrees. The determined circular velocity curve has some peculiarities in behavior near $R\sim$13 and 18 kpc, but in general it does not contradict the results of other authors up to distances where our statistics are reliable.