Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 424, Issue 1, Pages L16-L20Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2012.01276.x
Keywords
globular clusters: individual: NGC 5466; Galaxy: halo; Galaxy: kinematics and dynamics; Galaxy: structure
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Funding
- European Commissions Framework Programme 7, through the Marie Curie Initial Training Network CosmoComp [PITN-GA-2009-238356]
- SNF [PP00P2_128540/1]
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Stellar streams provide unique probes of galactic potentials, with the longer streams normally providing the cleaner measurements. In this Letter, we show an example of a short tidal stream that is particularly sensitive to the shape of the Milky Way's dark matter halo: the globular cluster tidal stream NGC 5466. This stream has an interesting deviation from a smooth orbit at its western edge. We show that such a deviation favours an underlying oblate or triaxial halo (irrespective of plausible variations in the Milky Way disc properties and the specific halo parametrization chosen); spherical or prolate halo shapes can be excluded at a high confidence level. Therefore, more extensive data sets along the NGC 5466 tidal stream promise strong constraints on the Milky Way halo shape.
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