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- BOSS Ancillary
- Stripe 82 Transients
- SNe Hosts
- BCGs in Stripe 82
- High-SN LRGs
- Reddened Quasars
- NQLB
- Variable QSOs
- K-band QSOs
- Low-Mass Stars
- Low-Mass Binaries
- White Dwarfs
- Distant Halo Giants
- Bright Galaxies
- Optical Blazars
- X-Ray Galaxies
- X-Ray Sources
- Radio Galaxies
- Galaxies near QSOs
- LBGs
- BAL QSO Variability
- Narrow-line QSOs
- Double-Lobed QSOs
- High-z QSOs
- UKIDSS QSOs
- BOSS Targeting
- Ancillary Targets
Distant Halo Giants
Summary
Spectra of class K giant stars in the outer halo of the Milky Way
Finding Targets
An object whose ANCILLARY_TARGET1 value include one or more of
the bitmasks in the following table was targeted for spectroscopy as part of this ancillary
target program. See SDSS-III bitmasks to learn how
to use these values to identify objects in this ancillary target program.
| Sub-program (bit name) |
Bit Number | Target density (deg–2) |
Survey Area (deg2) |
|---|---|---|---|
| RED_KG | 48 | 0.75 | 10,000 |
| RVTEST | 49 | ~0.75 | ~50 |
Description
Rare giants in the outer halo of the Milky Way are selected using a targeting strategy tested in SEGUE2 (the SDSS-III counterpart to SEGUE; Yanny et al. 2009, Rockosi et al., in prep.). Observations of the new BOSS targets are expected to increase the number of known halo stars beyond 60 kpc by a factor of ten. The full sample RED_KG will enable measurements of substructure of the Milky Way in position-velocity phase-space, a signature of the hierarchical assembly of the stellar halo. The data will thus provide tests of CDM predictions for galaxy assembly in a part of the Galaxy expected to be almost entirely composed of debris from recent accretions (Xue et al. 2011). The sample will also enable dynamical mass estimates for the Milky Way out to 150 kpc.
Target Selection Details
The following object selection criteria were used:
- 17 < gfib2 < 19.5
- Color box, with PSF - gPSF, gPSF - rPSF) corners of (0.8,2.35), (0.8,2.65), (1.4,3.0), and (1.4,3.9)
The first two selection criteria identify stars near the tip of the red giant branch in the region of the (u-g)/(g-r) diagram where giants separate from the locus of foreground dwarfs (Yanny et al. 2009). In addition, it is required that
- Total proper motion be < 11 mas/year, zero within three standard deviations of the proper motion errors (to reject nearby stars.)
- The 3'' fiber magnitude must be i > 16.5 (an additional mechanism to reject bright targets).
A smaller sample of targets is found on the commissioning plates. Denoted RVTEST, this sample targets stars previously observed spectroscopically as a test of the reproducibility of velocity measurements.
Primary contact
| Connie Rockosi |
|---|
| UC Santa Cruz and UCO/Lick Observatory |
| crockosi -at- ucolick.org |
Other contacts
Heather Morrison, Paul Harding
REFERENCES
Yanny, B., et al., 2009, AJ, 137, 4377,
doi:10.1088/0004-6256/137/5/4377
Xue, X.-X., Rix, H-W., Yanny, B., Beers, T.C., Bell, E.F., Zhao, G., Bullock, J.S.,
Johnston, K.V., Morrison, H., Rockosi, C., Koposov, S.E., Kang, X., Liu, C., Luo, A.,
Lee, Y.S., Weaver, B.A., 2011, ApJ, 738, 79,
doi:10.1088/0004-637X/738/1/79