Systematic census of RR Lyrae stars in Milky Way stellar streams
Bruno Dom\'inguez, Cecilia Mateu, Pau Ramos, Guillaume F. Thomas

TL;DR
This study systematically catalogs RR Lyrae stars in Milky Way stellar streams, providing new distances, identifying stream members, and analyzing their origins to enhance understanding of galactic structure.
Contribution
First comprehensive census of RR Lyrae stars in all known streams with proper motions, using a Bayesian model to identify members and analyze their properties.
Findings
Identified RR Lyrae in 32 of 56 streams' tidal tails.
Detected new RR Lyrae in 31 streams, establishing distances and gradients.
Provided intrinsic dispersion estimates and contamination quantification.
Abstract
Context. Nearly 150 tidal streams are known in the Milky Way, but full phase-space information exists for only a few. RR Lyrae stars (RRL), as standard candles, provide a powerful way to probe these structures, yet they have been identified in less than a dozen streams. Aims. We study the RRL population in all known stellar streams with reported proper motions in the galstreams library, performing the first systematic census of these stars. Our goals are to identify likely RRL members, map distances along streams, and compare RRL populations in streams and their progenitors. Method. We use a union of the largest RRL catalogs (Gaia DR3 SOS, PS1, and ASAS-SN-II) to construct a Bayesian probabilistic membership model and find 361 RRL in the 56 streams studied. Results. i) We find that 32 of the 56 streams have RRL in their tidal tails -- 13 with progenitors and 19 without; 13 of these…
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