The Milky Way bar/bulge in proper motions: a 3D view from VIRAC & Gaia

Understand

We have derived absolute proper motions of the entire Galactic bulge region from VIRAC and Gaia.

• We present these as both integrated on-sky maps and, after isolating standard candle red clump (RC) stars, as a function of distance using RC magnitude as a proxy.
• These data provide a new global, 3-dimensional view of the Milky Way barred bulge kinematics.
• We find a gradient in the mean longitudinal proper motion, $<\mu_l^\star>$, between the different sides of the bar, which is sensitive to the bar pattern speed.