Proper motion dispersions of red clump giants in the galactic bulge: Observations and model comparisons

Abstract

Red clump giants (RCGs) in the Galactic bulge are approximate standard candles and hence they can be used as distance indicators. We compute the proper motion dispersions of RCG stars in the Galactic bulge using the proper motion catalogue from the second phase of the Optical Gravitational Microlensing Experiment (OGLE-II) for 45 fields. The proper motion dispersions are measured to a few per cent accuracy due to the large number of stars in the fields. The observational sample comprises 577 736 stars. These observed data are compared to a state-of-the-art particle simulation of the Galactic bulge region. The predictions are in rough agreement with observations, but appear to be too anisotropic in the velocity ellipsoid. We note that there is significant field-to-field variation in the observed proper motion dispersions. This could either be a real feature, or due to some unknown systematic effect. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 RAS.