Axel Widmark (Stockholm University): Mining astrometric data in the Milky Way and Local Group

Thursday 29 Feb 2024, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Stockholm

Title: Mining astrometric data in the Milky Way and Local Group
Speaker: Axel Widmark
Affiliation: Stockholm University
Time: Thursday 29 February 2024, 1400 to 1500
Location: 101132 Å

Abstract: Our understanding of the Milky Way and Local Group is improving fast, thanks to the Gaia mission and other astrometric surveys. The increasingly complex picture we have of our Galaxy poses a challenge—how can we improve our data mining and modelling tools to make the most of this data? I will talk about ways to model stellar dynamics of the Milky Way and Local Group. We have used Bayesian Neural Networks to predict missing line-of-sight velocities in the Gaia catalogue, which in turn informs dynamical mass measurements of the stellar disk. We have also developed a new method for inferring the gravitational potential of the Milky Way disk, using the time-varying structure of the phase-space spiral in the plane of vertical position and vertical velocity. This method is complementary to traditional methods that are based on the assumption of a steady state.