A new near-IR window of low extinction in the Galactic plane

Dante Minniti, Roberto K. Saito, Oscar A. Gonzalez, Javier Alonso-García, Marina Rejkuba, Rodolfo Barbá, Mike Irwin, Roberto Kammers, Philip Lucas, Daniel Majaess, Elena Valenti

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)
27 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Aims. The windows of low extinction in the Milky Way (MW) plane are rare but important because they enable us to place structural constraints on the opposite side of the Galaxy, which has hither to been done rarely. Methods. We use the near-infrared (near-IR) images of the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) Survey to build extinction maps and to identify low extinction windows towards the Southern Galactic plane. Here we report the discovery of VVV WIN 1713-3939, a very interesting window with relatively uniform and low extinction conveniently placed very close to the Galactic plane. Results. The new window of roughly 30 arcmin diameter is located at Galactic coordinates (l, b) = (347.4, -0.4) deg. We analyse the VVV near-IR colour-magnitude diagrams in this window. The mean total near-IR extinction and reddening values measured for this window are A Ks = 0.46 and E(J - K s) = 0.95. The red clump giants within the window show a bimodal magnitude distribution in the K s band, with peaks at K s = 14.1 and 14.8 mag, corresponding to mean distances of D = 11.0 ± 2.4 and 14.8 ± 3.6 kpc, respectively. We discuss the origin of these red clump overdensities within the context of the MW disk structure.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberA26
Number of pages6
JournalAstronomy and Astrophysics
Volume616
Early online date23 Apr 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2018

Keywords

  • Dust, extinction
  • Galaxy: Disk
  • Galaxy: Structure
  • Surveys

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