The GALAH Survey Sees Stellar Streams: Dependence of Nearby Velocity Distributions on Galactic Longitude and Metallicity

Alice C. Quillen, Gayandhi De Silva, Sanjib Sharma, Michael Hayden, Ken Freeman, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Maruša Žerjal, Martin Asplund, Sven Buder, Valentina D'Orazi, Ly Duong, Janez Kos, Jane Lin, Karin Lind, Sarah Martell, Katharine Schlesinger, Jeffrey D. Simpson, Daniel B. Zucker, Tomaz Zwitter, Borja Anguiano, Daniela Carollo, Luca Casagrande, Klemen Cotar, Peter L. Cottrell, Michael Ireland, Prajwal R. Kafle, Jonathan Horner, Geraint F. Lewis, David M. Nataf, Yuan-Sen Ting, Fred Watson, Rob Wittenmyer, Rosemary Wyse

Published 2018-02-08Version 1

Using GALAH survey data of nearby stars, we look at how structure in the planar ($u,v$) velocity distribution depends on metallicity and on viewing direction within the Galaxy. In nearby stars with distance $d \lesssim 1$ kpc, the Hercules stream is most strongly seen in higher metallicity stars [Fe/H]$ > 0.2$. The Hercules stream peak $v$ value depends on viewed galactic longitude, which we interpret as due to the gap between the stellar stream and more circular orbits being associated with a specific angular momentum value of about 1620 km/s kpc. The association of the gap with a particular angular momentum value supports a bar resonant model for the Hercules stream. Moving groups previously identified in Hipparcos observations are easiest to see in closer stars with $d<250$ pc, and their visibility and peak velocities in the velocity distributions depends on both viewing direction (galactic longitude and hemisphere) and metallicity. We infer that there is fine structure in local velocity distributions that varies over distances of a few hundred pc in the Galaxy.