Distance measurements for double red clump in the Milky Way bulge using Gaia DR2

  • Lim, Dongwook (Center for Galaxy Evolution Research & Department of Astronomy, Yonsei University) ;
  • Hong, Seungsoo (Center for Galaxy Evolution Research & Department of Astronomy, Yonsei University) ;
  • Lee, Young-Wook (Center for Galaxy Evolution Research & Department of Astronomy, Yonsei University)
  • Published : 2018.10.10

Abstract

The presence of double red clump (RC) in the Milky Way bulge is widely accepted as evidence for a giant X-shaped structure originated from the bar instability. We suggested, however, a drastically different interpretation based on the multiple stellar populations phenomenon as is observed in globular clusters. Our discovery of a significant difference in CN-band between two RCs strengthens our scenario. On the other hand, recent Gaia survey provides trigonometric parallax distances for more than one billion stars in our Galaxy. These distance measurements would provide the important test as to the origin of the double RC in the Milky Way bulge. In this talk, we will present our preliminary results from Gaia DR2.

Keywords