Gaia-DR2 distance to the W3 Complex in the Perseus Arm

Autor(es)

Navarete, Felipe ^[1] ; Galli, Phillip A. B. ^[2] ; Damineli, Augusto ^[1]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Astron Geofis & Ciencias Atmosfer, Rua Matao 1226, BR-05508090 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[2] Univ Bordeaux, CNRS, Lab Astrophys Bordeaux, B18N Allee Geoffroy St Hillaire, F-33615 Pessac - France

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; v. 487, n. 2, p. 2771-2784, AUG 2019.
• Citações Web of Science: 1

Resumo

The Perseus Arm is the closest Galactic spiral arm from the Sun, offering an excellent opportunity to study in detail its stellar population. However, its distance has been controversial with discrepancies by a factor of two. Kinematic distances are in the range 3.9-4.2 kpc as compared to 1.9-2.3 kpc from spectrophotometric and trigonometric parallaxes, reinforcing previous claims that this arm exhibits peculiar velocities. We used the astrometric information of a sample of 31 OB stars from the star-forming W3 Complex to identify another 37 W3 members and to derive its distance from their Gaia-DR2 parallaxes with improved accuracy. The Gaia-DR2 distance to the W3 Complex, 2.14(-0.07)(+0.08) kpc, coincides with the previous stellar distances of similar to 2 kpc. The Gaia-DR2 parallaxes tentatively show differential distances for different parts of the W3 Complex: W3 Main, located to the NW direction, is at 2.30(-0.16)(+0.19) kpc, the W3 Cluster (IC 1795), in the central region of the complex, is at 2.17(-0.11)(+ 0.12) kpc, and W3(OH) is at 2.00(-0.23)(+0.29) kpc to the SE direction. The W3 Cluster is the oldest region, indicating that it triggered the formation of the other two star-forming regions located at the edges of an expanding shell around the cluster. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 17/18191-8 - Formação de estrelas de alta massa: a massa do objeto central e a física da acreção
• Beneficiário: Felipe Donizeti Teston Navarete
• Linha de fomento: Bolsas no Brasil - Pós-Doutorado
• Processo FAPESP: 11/51680-6 - Explorando o universo: da formação de galáxias aos planetas tipo-terra, com o Telescópio Gigante Magellan
• Beneficiário: João Evangelista Steiner
• Linha de fomento: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Projetos Especiais