Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Improved distances and ages for stars common to TGAS and RAVE

McMillan, Paul J. LU orcid ; Kordopatis, Georges ; Kunder, Andrea ; Binney, James ; Wojno, Jennifer ; Zwitter, Tomaž ; Steinmetz, Matthias ; Bland-Hawthorn, Joss ; Gibson, Brad K. and Gilmore, Gerard , et al. (2018) In Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 477(4). p.5279-5300
Abstract

We combine parallaxes from the first Gaia data release with the spectrophotometric distance estimation framework for stars in the fifth RAVE survey data release. The combined distance estimates aremore accurate than either determination in isolation - uncertainties are on average two times smaller than for RAVE-only distances (three times smaller for dwarfs), and 1.4 times smaller than TGAS parallax uncertainties (two times smaller for giants). We are also able to compare the estimates from spectrophotometry to those from Gaia, and use this to assess the reliability of both catalogues and improve our distance estimates. We find that the distances to the lowest log g stars are, on average, overestimated and caution that they may not be... (More)

We combine parallaxes from the first Gaia data release with the spectrophotometric distance estimation framework for stars in the fifth RAVE survey data release. The combined distance estimates aremore accurate than either determination in isolation - uncertainties are on average two times smaller than for RAVE-only distances (three times smaller for dwarfs), and 1.4 times smaller than TGAS parallax uncertainties (two times smaller for giants). We are also able to compare the estimates from spectrophotometry to those from Gaia, and use this to assess the reliability of both catalogues and improve our distance estimates. We find that the distances to the lowest log g stars are, on average, overestimated and caution that they may not be reliable. We also find that it is likely that the Gaia random uncertainties are smaller than the reported values. As a by-product we derive ages for the RAVE stars, many with relative uncertainties less than 20 per cent. These results for 219 566 RAVE sources have been made publicly available, and we encourage their use for studies that combine the radial velocities provided by RAVE with the proper motions provided by Gaia. A sample that we believe to be reliable can be found by taking only the stars with the flag notification 'flag_any=0'.

(Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; and , et al. (More)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; and (Less)
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Galaxy: fundamental parameters, Galaxy: kinematics and dynamics, Galaxy: structure, Methods: statistical
in
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
volume
477
issue
4
pages
22 pages
publisher
Oxford University Press
external identifiers
  • scopus:85052493872
ISSN
0035-8711
DOI
10.1093/MNRAS/STY990
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
02bd15b5-9f6f-4943-bdbe-e74b811c9979
date added to LUP
2018-09-27 09:47:57
date last changed
2024-03-02 01:11:56
@article{02bd15b5-9f6f-4943-bdbe-e74b811c9979,
  abstract     = {{<p>We combine parallaxes from the first Gaia data release with the spectrophotometric distance estimation framework for stars in the fifth RAVE survey data release. The combined distance estimates aremore accurate than either determination in isolation - uncertainties are on average two times smaller than for RAVE-only distances (three times smaller for dwarfs), and 1.4 times smaller than TGAS parallax uncertainties (two times smaller for giants). We are also able to compare the estimates from spectrophotometry to those from Gaia, and use this to assess the reliability of both catalogues and improve our distance estimates. We find that the distances to the lowest log g stars are, on average, overestimated and caution that they may not be reliable. We also find that it is likely that the Gaia random uncertainties are smaller than the reported values. As a by-product we derive ages for the RAVE stars, many with relative uncertainties less than 20 per cent. These results for 219 566 RAVE sources have been made publicly available, and we encourage their use for studies that combine the radial velocities provided by RAVE with the proper motions provided by Gaia. A sample that we believe to be reliable can be found by taking only the stars with the flag notification 'flag_any=0'.</p>}},
  author       = {{McMillan, Paul J. and Kordopatis, Georges and Kunder, Andrea and Binney, James and Wojno, Jennifer and Zwitter, Tomaž and Steinmetz, Matthias and Bland-Hawthorn, Joss and Gibson, Brad K. and Gilmore, Gerard and Grebel, Eva K. and Helmi, Amina and Munari, Ulisse and Navarro, Julio F. and Parker, Quentin A. and Seabroke, George and Watson, Fred and Wyse, Rosemary F.G.}},
  issn         = {{0035-8711}},
  keywords     = {{Galaxy: fundamental parameters; Galaxy: kinematics and dynamics; Galaxy: structure; Methods: statistical}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{07}},
  number       = {{4}},
  pages        = {{5279--5300}},
  publisher    = {{Oxford University Press}},
  series       = {{Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}},
  title        = {{Improved distances and ages for stars common to TGAS and RAVE}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/MNRAS/STY990}},
  doi          = {{10.1093/MNRAS/STY990}},
  volume       = {{477}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}