"SPECIAL ASTROPHYSICS SEMINAR: The Milky Way in Stereo: Constraints on the Galactic Gravitational Potential from Multiple Stellar Streams"

Stellar streams are powerful constraints of the Galactic gravitational potential, but because the true potential form is unknown, individual streams can produce very biased results. Most potential recovery methods rely on full, observationally expensive, 6D information for the stream member stars. Consequently, current constraints of the Milky Way potential are based on individual streams, with some tension between different streams. 

 

These discrepancies can be resolved by simultaneously modeling multiple stellar streams that have been discovered in the Galactic halo. We use two most prominent cold streams in the Milky Way, tidal tails of the Palomar 5 globular cluster and GD-1 stream, to measure the global properties of our dark matter halo. Based on the analysis of synthetic streams on similar orbits in a realistic dark matter-only simulation, we discuss which new data would most improve our understanding of the Galactic gravitational potential.

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