Exploring halo substructure with giant stars. XIV. The nature of the Triangulum-Andromeda stellar features

Abstract

As large-scale stellar surveys have become available over the past decade, the ability to detect and characterize substructures in the Galaxy has increased dramatically. These surveys have revealed the Triangulum-Andromeda (TriAnd) region to be rich with substructures in the distance range 20-30 kpc, and the relation of these features to each other, if any, remains unclear. An exploration using Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) photometry reveals not only the faint sequence in M giants detected by Rocha-Pinto et al. spanning the range 100° < l < 160°and -50° < b