Identifying high-metallicity m giants at intragroup distances with sloan digital sky survey

Abstract

Tidal stripping and three-body interactions with the central supermassive black hole may eject stars from the Milky Way. These stars would comprise a set of "intragroup" stars that trace the past history of interactions in our galactic neighborhood. Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7, we identify candidate solar-metallicity red giant intragroup stars using color cuts that are designed to exclude nearby M and L dwarfs. We present 677 intragroup candidates that are selected between 300kpc and 2Mpc, and are either the reddest intragroup candidates (M7-M10) or are L dwarfs at larger distances than previously detected. © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.