3pm - 4pm

Thursday 1 November 2018

Using Gaia for studying Milky Way star clusters

Astrophysics seminar: Dr Eugene Vasiliev will talk about the implications of the Gaia Data Release 2 catalogue for studying the star clusters.

Free

Alan Turing building (BB), floor 3, room 30
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey
GU2 7XH
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Speakers

  • Dr Eugene Vasiliev, Research fellow at Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge

Overview

Dr Eugene Vasiliev will review the implications of the Gaia Data Release 2 catalogue for studying the star clusters.

Starting with an overview of the content and the properties of the Data release 2, he will discuss the various caveats in analyzing the data and possible approaches for mitigating them. Then focus on two separate topics, both concerning the dynamics of globular clusters.

The first one is the study of the full six-dimensional phase-space distribution of the entire population of Milky Way globular clusters; their mean proper motions (PM) can be measured with an exquisite precision (down to 0.05 mas/yr, including systematic errors). Using this data, and a suitable ansatz for the steady-state distribution function (DF) of the cluster population, he will determine simultaneously the best-fit parameters of this DF and the total Milky Way potential.

Also discussing possible correlated structures in the space of integrals of motion.

The second topic addresses the internal dynamics of some of the closest and richest globular clusters, again using the Gaia PM to measure the velocity dispersion and internal rotation, with a proper treatment of spatially correlated systematic errors.

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