2012

Galactoseismology: Discovery of Vertical Waves in the Galactic Disk

Widrow, Lawrence M., Gardner, Susan, Yanny, Brian et al.

Understand

We present evidence for a Galactic North-South asymmetry in the number density and bulk velocity of solar neighborhood stars.

The number density profile, which is derived from main-sequence stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, shows a (North - South)/(North + South) deficit at |z| ~ 400 pc and an excess at |z| ~ 800 pc.
The bulk velocity profile, which is derived from the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration, shows a gradual trend across the Galactic midplane as well as smaller-scale features.
We speculate that the North-South asymmetry, which has the appearance of a wavelike perturbation, is intrinsic to the disk.

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