Displacement of the Sun from the Galactic plane
Abstract
We have carried out a comparative statistical study for the displacement of the Sun from the Galactic plane (zsolar) following three different methods. The study has been carried out using a sample of 537 young open clusters (YOCs) with log(Age) < 8.5, lying within a heliocentric distance of 4 kpc, and 2030 OB stars observed up to a distance of 1200 pc, all of which have distance information. We statistically separated the members of the Gould Belt before investigating the variation in the zsolar estimation with different upper cut-off limits in the heliocentric distance and distance perpendicular to the Galactic plane. We have found that zsolar varies in the range ~13-20 pc from the analysis of YOCs and in the range ~6-28 pc from the analysis of OB stars. A significant scatter in zsolar, because of different cut-off values, is noticed for the OB stars, although no such deviation is seen for the YOCs. We have also determined scaleheights of 56.9+3.8-3.4 and 61.4+2.7-2.4 pc for the distribution of YOCs and OB stars, respectively.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- June 2007
- DOI:
- 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11831.x
- arXiv:
- arXiv:0704.0950
- Bibcode:
- 2007MNRAS.378..768J
- Keywords:
-
- methods: statistical;
- astronomical data bases: miscellaneous;
- open clusters and associations: general;
- Galaxy: structure;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 22 pages, 11 figures, 1 table, accepted for the publication in MNRAS