Bibcode
DOI
Brown, Warren R.; Geller, Margaret J.; Kenyon, Scott J.; Kurtz, Michael J.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Beers, Timothy C.; Wilhelm, Ronald
Bibliographical reference
The Astronomical Journal, Volume 130, Issue 3, pp. 1097-1110.
Advertised on:
9
2005
Citations
21
Refereed citations
19
Description
We discuss a 175 deg2 spectroscopic survey for blue
horizontal branch (BHB) stars in the Galactic halo. We use the Two
Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to
select BHB candidates, and we find that the 2MASS and SDSS color
selection is 38% and 50% efficient, respectively, for BHB stars. Our
samples include one likely runaway B7 star 6 kpc below the Galactic
plane. The global properties of the BHB samples are consistent with
membership in the halo population: the median metallicity is
[Fe/H]=-1.7, the velocity dispersion is 108 km s-1, and the
mean Galactic rotation of the BHB stars 3 kpc<|z|<15 kpc is
-4+/-30 km s-1. We discuss the theoretical basis of the
Preston, Shectman, and Beers MV-color relation for BHB stars
and conclude that the intrinsic shape of the BHB MV-color
relation results from the physics of stars on the horizontal branch. We
calculate the luminosity function for the field BHB star samples using
the maximum likelihood method of Efstathiou and coworkers, which is
unbiased by density variations. The field BHB luminosity function
exhibits a steep rise at bright luminosities, a peak between
0.8