TY - JOUR
T1 - Sifting for a stream
T2 - the morphology of the stellar stream
AU - Cohen, Benjamin
AU - Ji, Alexander P.
AU - Ferguson, Peter S.
AU - Koposov, Sergey E.
AU - Drlica-Wagner, Alex
AU - Li, Andrew P.
AU - Li, Ting S.
AU - Cullinane, Lara R.
AU - Da Costa, Gary S.
AU - Erkal, Denis
AU - Kuehn, Kyler
AU - Lewis, Geraint F.
AU - Martell, Sarah L.
AU - Pace, Andrew B.
AU - Zucker, Daniel B.
AU - Awad, Petra
AU - Bland-Hawthorn, Joss
AU - Limberg, Guilherme
AU - Martínez-Vázquez, Clara E.
AU - Simon, Joshua D.
AU - Yang, Yong
AU - (S5 Collaboration)
PY - 2026
Y1 - 2026
N2 - Stellar streams are sensitive laboratories for understanding the small-scale structure in our Galaxy’s gravitational field. Here, we analyze the morphology of the 300S stellar stream, which has an eccentric, retrograde orbit and thus could be an especially powerful probe of both baryonic and dark substructures within the Milky Way. Due to extensive background contamination from the Sagittarius stream (Sgr), we perform an analysis combining Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey photometry, Gaia DR3 proper motions, and spectroscopy from the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S5). We redetermine the stream coordinate system and distance gradient, then apply two approaches to describe 300S’s morphology. In the first, we analyze stars from Gaia using proper motions to remove Sgr. In the second, we generate a simultaneous model of 300S and Sgr based purely on photometric information. Both approaches agree within their respective domains and describe the stream over a region spanning 33◦. Overall, 300S has three well-defined density peaks and smooth variations in stream width. Furthermore, 300S has a possible gap of ∼ 4.7◦ and a kink. Dynamical modeling of the kink implies that 300S was dramatically influenced by the Large Magellanic Cloud. This is the first model of 300S’s morphology across its entire known footprint, opening the door for deeper analysis to constrain the structures of the Milky Way.
AB - Stellar streams are sensitive laboratories for understanding the small-scale structure in our Galaxy’s gravitational field. Here, we analyze the morphology of the 300S stellar stream, which has an eccentric, retrograde orbit and thus could be an especially powerful probe of both baryonic and dark substructures within the Milky Way. Due to extensive background contamination from the Sagittarius stream (Sgr), we perform an analysis combining Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey photometry, Gaia DR3 proper motions, and spectroscopy from the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S5). We redetermine the stream coordinate system and distance gradient, then apply two approaches to describe 300S’s morphology. In the first, we analyze stars from Gaia using proper motions to remove Sgr. In the second, we generate a simultaneous model of 300S and Sgr based purely on photometric information. Both approaches agree within their respective domains and describe the stream over a region spanning 33◦. Overall, 300S has three well-defined density peaks and smooth variations in stream width. Furthermore, 300S has a possible gap of ∼ 4.7◦ and a kink. Dynamical modeling of the kink implies that 300S was dramatically influenced by the Large Magellanic Cloud. This is the first model of 300S’s morphology across its entire known footprint, opening the door for deeper analysis to constrain the structures of the Milky Way.
KW - Globular star clusters
KW - Local Group
KW - Magellanic Clouds
KW - Milky Way Galaxy
KW - Stellar streams
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105036843015
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/CE170100013
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP180101791
U2 - 10.33232/001c.161089
DO - 10.33232/001c.161089
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105036843015
SN - 2565-6120
VL - 9
JO - The Open Journal of Astrophysics
JF - The Open Journal of Astrophysics
ER -