Tracing the Galactic Disk with the Kinematics of Gaia Cepheids

Abstract

Classical Cepheids (CCs) are excellent tracers for understanding the structure of the Milky Way disk. The latest Gaia Data Release 3 provides a large number of line-of-sight velocity information for Galactic CCs, offering an opportunity for studying the kinematics of the Milky Way. We determine the 3D velocities of 2057 CCs relative to the Galactic center. From the projections of the 3D velocities onto the X – Y plane of the Galactic disk, we find that the V _R and V _ϕ velocities of the northern and southern warps (directions with highest amplitude) are different. This phenomenon may be related to warp precession or asymmetry in warp structure. By investigating the kinematic warp model, we find that the vertical velocities of CCs are more suitable for constraining the warp precession rate than the line-of-node angle. Our results suggest that CCs at 12–14 kpc are the best sample for determining the Galactic warp precession rate. Based on the spatial structure parameters of Cepheid warp from Chen et al., we determine a warp precession rate of ω = 4.9 ± 1.6 km s ^−1 kpc ^−1 at 13 kpc, which supports a low precession rate in the warp model. In the future, more kinematic information on CCs will help to constrain the structure and evolution of the Milky Way better.

Keywords

• Galaxy structure
• Milky Way disk
• Stellar kinematics
• Galaxy rotation curves
• Cepheid variable stars