Finding Stellar Streams in Photometric Surveys

Abstract

The advent of high‐quality, wide‐area photometric databases has enabled significant advances in our knowledge of the structure, constituents, and accretion history of our Galaxy. Matched‐filtering techniques allow us to map the spatial distributions of stellar populations with particular color‐magnitude characteristics. This has already led to the detection of several long tidal streams in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey footprint. These streams are variously attributed to disrupted globular clusters and dwarf galaxies and offer us a new window into the structure, dark matter content, and formation history of the Galaxy. Similar techniques applied to future photometric surveys will enable us to expand the search for stellar debris streams over much of the Local Group.

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