Exploring Halo Substructure with Giant Stars. XV. Discovery of a Connection between the Monoceros Ring and the Triangulum–Andromeda Overdensity?* † ‡

Abstract

Abstract Thanks to modern sky surveys, over 20 stellar streams and overdensity structures have been discovered in the halo of the Milky Way. In this paper, we present an analysis of spectroscopic observations of individual stars from one such structure, “A13,” first identified as an overdensity using the M giant catalog from the Two Micron All Sky Survey. Our spectroscopic observations show that stars identified with A13 have a velocity dispersion of ≲40 , implying that it is a genuine coherent structure rather than a chance superposition of random halo stars. From its position on the sky, distance (∼15 kpc heliocentric), and kinematical properties, A13 is likely to be an extension of another substructure at low Galactic latitude—the Galactic Anticenter Stellar Structure (also known as the Monoceros Ring)—toward smaller Galactic longitude and greater distance. Furthermore, the kinematics of A13 also connect it with another structure in the southern Galactic hemisphere—the Triangulum–Andromeda overdensity. We discuss these three connected structures within the context of a previously proposed scenario in which one or all of these features originate from the disk of the Milky Way.