Velocity-space substructures and bar resonances in an N-body Milky Way

AbstractThe velocity-space distribution of the solar neighborhood stars shows complex substructures (moving groups) including the well-known Hercules stream. Recently, the Gaia observation revealed their detailed structures, but their origins are still in debate. We analyzed a high-resolution N-body simulation of a Milky Way (MW)-like galaxy. To find velocity-space distributions similar to that of the solar neighborhood stars, we used Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD), which is a metric to measure similarities between probability distributions. The KLD analysis shows the time evolution and the spatial variation of the velocity-space distribution. Velocity-space distributions with small KLDs (i.e. high similarities) are frequently but not always detected around in the simulated MW. In the velocity-map with smallest KLD, the velocity-space substructures are made from bar resonances.