Antaeus: A Retrograde Group of Tidal Debris in the Milky Way's Disk Plane
Abstract
We present the discovery of a wide retrograde moving group in the disk plane of the Milky Way using action-angle coordinates derived from the Gaia DR3 catalog. The structure is identified from a sample of its members that are currently almost at the pericenter of their orbit and are passing through the solar neighborhood. The motions of the stars in this group are highly correlated, indicating that the system is probably not phase mixed. With a width of at least 1.5 kpc and with a probable intrinsic spread in metallicity, this structure is most likely the wide remnant of a tidal stream of a disrupted ancient dwarf galaxy (age ~12 Gyr, <[Fe/H]> ~ -1.74). The structure presents many similarities (e.g., in energy, angular momentum, metallicity, and eccentricity) with the Sequoia merging event. However, it possesses extremely low vertical action J z , which makes it unique even among Sequoia dynamical groups. As the low J z may be attributable to dynamical friction, we speculate that these stars may be the remnants of the dense core of the Sequoia progenitor.
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