Bibcode
Calbet, X.; Mahoney, T.; Garzon, F.; Hammersley, P. L.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 276, NO. 1/SEP1, P. 301, 1995
Advertised on:
9
1995
Citations
11
Refereed citations
9
Description
A new method of representing star count data is shown which has the
advantage over traditional methods of giving clear insights into the
luminosity functions and density distributions of certain stellar
components of the Galaxy. When this method is applied to data from the
Two-Micron Galactic Survey (TMGS) it is seen that the luminosity
function of the spiral arms must have a significant and narrow peak at
MK ≅ -7.6 mag, and that these stars are located within
90 pc perpendicular to the Galactic plane and at most 500 pc in the
direction parallel to the plane, suggesting that these stars are located
in the core of the spiral arms. Their density is roughly of the order of
1.4 × 10-5. The strong concentration of bright stars
located within 500 pc of the Galactic Centre detected by the TMGS also
shows a significant and narrow peak in its luminosity function at
MK = -8.8 (or brighter). The density distribution of these
stars seems to be approximately Gaussian about the Galactic Centre and
contains several dense dark clouds. A lower limit for the density
distribution of these stars is 8.3 × 10-6
pc-3.