Possible Velocity Probes at the Crossroads of the Galactic Bar and Disk with Red Supergiant SiO Masers

  • CART Astrophysics Seminar Series

November 14, 2024 2:00 PM
PAIS 3205

Host:
Greg Taylor
Presenter:
Rachel Weller
There is much to be learned from the mapping of the structure and dynamics of the Milky Way. Many large-scale surveys exist to model this, yet there is a gap in our knowledge due to interstellar extinction and stellar density restricting the optical and near-IR. We can fill this gap with radio wavelengths, where work has been done with surveys such as BAaDE and BeSSel. Despite this, many details of the structure are yet to be determined. I will present a survey of circumstellar SiO maser emission in potential Red Supergiants (RSGs) that we are using to construct models of the bar and disk in otherwise compromised or unsampled regions. We have observed 653 candidate RSG sources at 43GHz with the VLA and are currently analyzing the data to determine distances to, line-of-sight velocities, and positions of RSGs at regions of kinematic interest. I will provide an overview of the preliminary work and potential results of this survey, as well as the future work and modeling to be done. I will also discuss the work being done to classify our sources as RSGs, looking at line widths of the SiO maser emission and evolutionary track with derived distances. 

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