The Galactic Disk North–South Asymmetry in Metallicity May Be a New Tracer for the Disk Warp

Abstract

Galactic disk warp has been widely characterized by stellar distributions and stellar kinematics but has not been traced by stellar chemistry. Here, we use a sample with over 170,000 red clump (RC) stars selected from LAMOST and APOGEE first to establish a correlation between the north–south asymmetry in metallicity ([Fe/H]) and the disk warp. Our results indicate that the height of the [Fe/H] midplane for the whole RC sample stars is accurately described as Z _w = 0.017 ( R − 7.112) ^2 sin( ϕ − 9.218). This morphology aligns closely with the warp traced by Cepheids, suggesting that the disk north–south asymmetry in [Fe/H] may serve as a new tracer for the Galactic warp. Our detailed analysis of the young/thin disk stars of this RC sample suggests that its warp is well modeled as Z _w = 0.016 ( R − 6.507) ^2 sin( ϕ − 4.240), indicating that the line of node of the Galactic warp is oriented at 4.240 ${}_{-1.747}^{+1.641}$ degrees.

Keywords

• Galaxy structure
• Milky Way disk
• Stellar abundances
• Stellar kinematics