A Blueprint for the Milky Way’s Stellar Populations. II. Improved Isochrone Calibration in the SDSS and Pan-STARRS Photometric Systems

Abstract

Abstract We improve the identification and isolation of individual stellar populations in the Galactic halo based on an updated set of empirically calibrated stellar isochrones in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Pan-STARRS 1 photometric systems. Along the Galactic prime meridian (l = 0° and 180°), where proper motions and parallaxes from Gaia DR2 can be used to compute rotational velocities of stars in the rest frame of the Milky Way, we use the observed double color–magnitude sequences of stars having large transverse motions, which are mostly attributed to groups of stars in the metal-poor halo and the thick disk with halo-like kinematics, respectively. The Gaia sequences directly constrain color–magnitude relations of model colors, and help to improve our previous calibration using Galactic star clusters. Based on these updated sets of stellar isochrones, we confirm earlier results on the presence of distinct groups of stars in the metallicity versus rotational-velocity plane, and find that the distribution of the most metal-poor ([Fe/H] < −2) stars in our sample can be modeled using two separate groups on prograde and retrograde orbits, respectively. At 4–6 kpc from the Galactic plane, we find approximately equal proportions of the Splashed Disk, and the metal-rich (〈[Fe/H]〉 ∼ −1.6) and metal-poor (〈[Fe/H]〉 ∼ −2.5) halos on prograde orbits. The Gaia–Sausage–Enceladus, the metal-weak thick disk, and the retrograde halo structure(s) (〈[Fe/H]〉 ∼ −2.2) constitute approximately 10% of the rest of the stellar populations at these distances.