The DOI matches its Crossref record; 94 of the 94 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The total stellar halo mass of the Milky Way
Open accessAbstract
We measure the total stellar halo luminosity using red giant branch (RGB) stars selected from Gaia data release 2. Using slices in magnitude, colour, and location on the sky, we decompose RGB stars belonging to the disc and halo by fitting two-dimensional Gaussians to the Galactic proper motion distributions. The number counts of RGB stars are converted to total stellar halo luminosity using a suite of isochrones weighted by age and metallicity, and by applying a volume correction based on the stellar halo density profile. Our method is tested and calibrated using Galaxia and N-body models. We find a total luminosity (out to 100 kpc) of $L_{\rm halo} = 7.9 \pm 2.0 \times 10^8\, \mathrm{L}_\odot$ excluding Sgr, and $L_{\rm halo} = 9.4 \pm 2.4 \times 10^8\, \mathrm{L}_\odot$ including Sgr. These values are appropriate for our adopted stellar halo density profile and metallicity distribution, but additional systematics related to these assumptions are quantified and discussed. Assuming a stellar mass-to-light ratio appropriate for a Kroupa initial mass function (M⋆/L = 1.5), we estimate a stellar halo mass of $M^\star _{\rm halo} = 1.4 \pm 0.4\times 10^9 \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$. This mass is larger than previous estimates in the literature, but is in good agreement with the emerging picture that the (inner) stellar halo is dominated by one massive dwarf progenitor. Finally, we argue that the combination of a ${\sim}10^9\, \mathrm{M}_\odot$ mass and an average metallicity of 〈[Fe/H]〉 ∼ −1.5 for the Galactic halo points to an ancient (∼10 Gyr) merger event.
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“which is similar in mass to the stellar halo (1 : 4 0 : 4 10 9 M , see Deason et al. 2019).”
From Kraken reveals itself – the merger history of the Milky Way reconstructed with the E-MOSAICS simulations (2020) · cites this paper as Deason et al. 2019
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Items 101–149 of 149
Griv, E., Gedalin, M., & Jiang, I. (2022) · New Astronomy · doi:10.1016/j.newast.2021.101758 · Cited by 6
Stellar halos of bright central galaxies
Contini, E., Spavone, M., Ragusa, R., Iodice, E., & Yi, S. K. (2024) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202452741 · Cited by 7
Astrometric mass measurement of compact companions in binary systems with Gaia
Wang, Y., Liao, S., Giacobbo, N., Olejak, A., Gao, J., & Liu, J. (2022) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202243684 · Cited by 7
Streams, Shells, and Substructures in the Accretion-built Stellar Halo of NGC 300
Fielder, C. E., Sand, D. J., Jones, M. G., Crnojević, D., Drlica-Wagner, A., Bennet, P., Carlin, J. L., Cerny, W., Doliva-Dolinsky, A., Hunter, L. E., et al. (2025) · The Astrophysical Journal Letters · doi:10.3847/2041-8213/adbf17 · Cited by 11
“Stellar halos constitute a small portion of a galaxy’s stellar mass ( ∼ 1% in the Milky Way; Deason et al. 2019; Mackereth & Bovy 2020), but the long dynamical timescales at play preserve the evolutionary history of the system.”
Orkney, M. D. A., Laporte, C. F. P., Grand, R. J. J., & Springel, V. (2025) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/staf1551 · Cited by 6
On the mass assembly history of the Milky Way: clues from its stellar halo
Horta, D., & Schiavon, R. P. (2024) · Astrophysics and Space Science · doi:10.1007/s10509-024-04370-y · Cited by 6
“This population has been shown to dominate the inner (6 (cid:2) r GC (cid:2) 25 kpc) regions of the stellar halo (e.g., Deason et al. 2019; Iorio and Be-lokurov 2019; Mackereth and Bovy 2020), and is believed to be the culprit for the formation of the present day in situ halo via heating of the old…”
New globular cluster candidates in the M81 group
Pan, J., Bell, E. F., Smercina, A., Price, P. A., Slater, C. T., Bailin, J., de Jong, R. S., D’Souza, R., Jang, I. S., & Monachesi, A. (2022) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stac1638 · Cited by 6
Diffuse Light in Milky Way–like Haloes
Contini, E., Han, S., Jeon, S., Rhee, J., & Yi, S. K. (2024) · The Astrophysical Journal Letters · doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ad21e2 · Cited by 5
“In Contini et al. (2024), we associated this ratio to the efficiency of the hosts in producing DL, and found that it is a weak decreasing function of halo mass, from (Deason et al. 2019; Harmsen et al. 2017; Ragusa et al. 2023; Kluge et al. 2021).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialKinematics of High-Velocity Stars within 300 pc from the Sun according to Gaia DR3
Tutukov, A. V., Чупина, Н. В., & Vereshchagin, S. V. (2023) · Astronomy Reports · doi:10.1134/s1063772923120120 · Cited by 5
Progenitor Diversity in the Accreted Stellar Halos of Milky Way–like Galaxies
Pu, S.-Y., Cooper, A. P., Grand, R. J. J., Gómez, F. A., & Monachesi, A. (2025) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ada382 · Cited by 5
Deciphering the Kinematic Substructure of Local Dark Matter with LAMOST K Giants
Zhu, H., Guo, R., Shen, J., Liu, J., Liu, C., Xue, X.-X., Zhang, L., & Mao, S. (2024) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad6b17 · Cited by 4
“…the GES is thought to be a large dwarf galaxy with a highly eccentric orbit and a stellar mass on the order of 10 9 − 10 10 M ⊙ (Vincenzo et al. 2019; Deason et al. 2019; Fattahi et al. 2019; Koppelman et al. 2020) and merged with the Milky Way around 8 10 Gyr ago (Sahlholdt et al. 2019; Bignone…”
BackgroundBeltrand, C., Monachesi, A., D’Souza, R., Bell, E. F., de Jong, R. S., Gómez, F. A., Bailin, J., Jang, I. S., & Smercina, A. (2024) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202450626 · Cited by 4
Localizing Dynamically Formed Black Hole Binaries in Milky Way Globular Clusters with LISA
Xuan, Z., Kremer, K., & Naoz, S. (2025) · The Astrophysical Journal Letters · doi:10.3847/2041-8213/add718 · Cited by 4
“For example, assuming a halo stellar mass density of ρ halo ∼ 10 − 4 M ⊙ pc − 3 ( A. J. Deason et al. 2019 ) , the total halo stellar mass in the error volume V err of GW detection can be estimated as halostars halo err halo 2 Bayesian which yields M halostars ∼ 51 M ⊙ , 1.5 × 10 3 M ⊙ , 6.5 × 10 4…”
InfluentialHattori, K., Taniguchi, D., Tsujimoto, T., Matsunaga, N., Sameshima, H., Elgueta, S. S., & Otsubo, S. (2025) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ade78a · Cited by 4
What Is Missing from the Local Stellar Halo?
Sharpe, K., Naidu, R. P., & Conroy, C. (2024) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad19ca · Cited by 4
Mapping Milky Way Halo Substructure Using Stars in the Extended Blue Tail of the Horizontal Branch
Gryncewicz, R., Newberg, H. J., Martin, C., Donlon, T., & Amy, P. M. (2021) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/abe385 · Cited by 4
“This radial merger event is thought to have contributed the majority of the stars in the Milky Way inner halo (Deason et al. 2013, 2019; Belokurov et al. 2018) and has changed the way we think about searching for substructure in the outer parts of our galaxy.”
BackgroundDetection of Multiple Phase Space Overdensities of GSE Stars by Orbit Integration
Wu, W., Zhao, G., Chang, J., Xue, X.-X., Chen, Y., Li, C., Ye, X., & Yang, C. (2023) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/acd33a · Cited by 4
“GSE is thought to be a massive dwarf galaxy with a total stellar mass M* on the order of 109–1010Me (Deason et al. 2019; Fattahi et al. 2019; Mackereth et al. 2019; Vincenzo et al. 2019).”
BackgroundDillamore, A. M., Belokurov, V. A., Evans, N. W., & Font, A. S. (2022) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters · doi:10.1093/mnrasl/slac158 · Cited by 3
Self-citationAccreted stars and stellar haloes of simulated galaxies in TNG50
Celiz, B. M., Navarro, J. F., & Abadi, M. G. (2025) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202556633 · Cited by 2
Build-up and survival of the disc: from numerical models of galaxy formation to the Milky Way
Orkney, M. D. A., & Laporte, C. F. P. (2025) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/staf2154 · Cited by 2
Tao, B., Zhang, H.-X., Wang, W., Wang, E., Chen, G., Wang, H., Chen, L., Chen, Q.-H., Huang, S., Kong, X., et al. (2026) · The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series · doi:10.3847/1538-4365/ae48ec · Cited by 2
“15 for a Kroupa IMF (Deason et al. 2019), about 0.43 dex larger than the value reported earlier by Harmsen et al. (2017).”
InfluentialLane, J., & Bovy, J. (2025) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/staf294 · Cited by 2
Supernova explosions of runaway stars and young neutron stars above the Galactic plane
Dakić, V., Попов, С. Б., & TUROLLA, R. (2025) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202555186 · Cited by 2
Li, X., Shlosman, I., Pfenniger, D., & Heller, C. H. (2024) · The Astrophysical Journal Letters · doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ad67d6 · Cited by 2
“Deason et al. (2019) estimated stellar mass of the MW stellar halo at ∼ 1 .”
BackgroundApfel, M., McKinnon, K., Rockosi, C. M., Guhathakurta, P., & Johnston, K. V. (2025) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ade43d · Cited by 1
“Although the stellar halo is a small portion of the total stellar mass of the MW (e.g., Deason et al. 2019; Mackereth & Bovy 2020), it has long been of interest because of the wealth of information it contains about the history of the Galaxy.”
Strolger, L.-G., Bovill, M. S., Perlman, E. S., Kolobow, C., Larison, C., & Lane, Z. G. (2025) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ade43a · Cited by 1
“Assuming a MW halo stellar mass of ∼ 10 8 − 10 9 M − 1 ⊙ (E. F. Bell et al. 2008; A. J. Deason et al. 2011, 2019), with η B ≈ 0 .”
Kunder, A., Prudil, Z., Monachesi, A., Morris, S. J., Devine, K. E., Hughes, J., Covey, K. R., Rich, R. M., & Tau, E. A. (2025) · The Astronomical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-3881/adefdd · Cited by 1
Sharma, I., Jadhav, V. V., Subramaniam, A., & Wirth, H. (2025) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202555711 · Cited by 1
The rotation curve of the Milky Way measured by classical Cepheids from Gaia DR3
Feng, Q., Huang, Y., Zhang, H., & Liu, J. (2026) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stag011 · Cited by 2
A simulation-based inference of the Milky Way merger history
Sante, A., Font, A. S., Kawata, D., Makinen, T. L., & Grand, R. J. J. (2026) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stag1162 · Cited by 1
The progenitor galaxies of stellar haloes as ‘failed’ Milky Ways
Bose, S., & Deason, A. J. (2023) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stad1123 · Cited by 1
Self-citationThe accreted stellar haloes of Milky Way-mass galaxies as a probe of the nature of the dark matter
Moreno, V. J. F., Fattahi, A., Deason, A. J., Henstridge, F., & Benítez-Llambay, A. (2025) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/staf1344 · Cited by 3
Self-citationElemental Abundances in the Local Group: Tracing the Formation History of the Great Andromeda GalaxyPreprint
Escala, I. (2020) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.7907/16bk-vm98
Stellar Halos: modelling formation in the L-Galaxies 2020 semi-analytic model
Murphy, G. (2020) · Open University of Cape Town (University of Cape Town)
Galactic Chemical Evolution, Astronomical Observation from Metal-Poor Stars to the Solar System
Aoki, W., & Ishigaki, M. N. (2023) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-981-15-8818-1_105-1
Galactic Chemical Evolution, Astronomical Observation from Metal-Poor Stars to the Solar System
Aoki, W., & Ishigaki, M. N. (2023) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-981-19-6345-2_105
KINEMATICS OF HIGH-SPEED STARS WITHIN 300 PCS FROM THE SUN ACCORDING TO GAIA DR3
Tutukov, A. V., Чупина, Н. В., & Vereshchagin, S. V. (2023) · Astronomicheskii Zhurnal · doi:10.31857/s0004629923120125
Illuminating the Incidence of Extraplanar Dust Using Ultraviolet Reflection Nebulae with GALEX
Boettcher, E., & Hodges-Kluck, E. J. (2024) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad6902
“In contrast, the bolometric luminosities of the stellar halos of nearby, massive galaxies are typically a few to 10% of the disk luminosity (e.g., Bailin et al. 2011; Deason et al. 2019).”
BackgroundDetection of stellar wakes in the Milky Way: A deep learning approach
Põder, S., Pata, J., Benito, M., Asensio, I. A., & Vecchia, C. D. (2024) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202451480
Stellar Populations in the Extreme Outer Halo of the Spiral Galaxy M96
Mihos, J. C., Durrell, P. R., Malkan, B. K., & Watkins, A. E. (2026) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ae3fa2
“…gal, ∗ ) ranging from < 1% for M101 (Merritt et al. 2016; Jang et al. 2020; Gilhuly et al. 2022) to 2-3% for the Milky Way and M81 (Harmsen et al. 2017; Deason et al. 2019; Smercina et al. 2020; Mackereth & Bovy 2020), to over ≈ 10% for other luminous spirals (Harmsen et al. 2017; Bell et al.…”
Probing Atomic Dark Matter with Stellar Streams in Milky Way-mass Galaxies
Guerra, L. M. M., O'Neil, S., Lisanti, M., Roy, S., Sanderson, R. E., Kundu, A., Arora, A., Necib, L., Shipp, N., & Shen, X.-J. (2026) · Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ae9862 · Cited by 2
“…points in Figure 8 provide observational data for four MW streams: Orphan-Chenab (Mendelsohn et al. 2022; Hawkins et al. 2023), Helmi (Koppelman et al. 2019), Sagittarius (Mucciarelli et al. 2017; Gibbons et al. 2017; Deason et al. 2019), and Gaia-Enceladus (Feuillet et al. 2020; Lane et al. 2023).”
Galactic archaeology of the Milky Way disc with the Gaia space mission
Santos-Peral, P. (2021) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/a51ab6eazf94dz4aa0z91dczb6fc6b1d07cc
Probing galactic growth with low surface brightness (LSB) data from deep imaging surveys
Sola, E. (2023) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/c03459f6z8feez4c3dzaba6ze65ac73c08ad
PROBING KING AND PLUMMER DARK MATTER MODELS USING ROTATION CURVES
Kurmanov, Y., Konysbayev, T., Suliyeva, G., Urazalina, A., Oteev, T., Rabigulova, G., Nurlanbek, U., Adil, M., Bekmurat, B., & Tuzen, G. (2026) · Eurasian Physical Technical Journal · doi:10.31489/2026n2/139-147
Disentangling the Distant Stellar Halo Using K Giants in DESI Year 3 Data
Kizhuprakkat, N., Cooper, A. P., Wang, W., Byström, A., Najita, J., Koposov, S. E., Thomas, G. F., Li, S., Zhang, R., Prieto, C. A., et al. (2026) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ae7f15
“These surveys have characterized the overall mass and shape of the stellar halo (e.g. Bell et al. 2008; Jurić et al. 2008; Ivezić et al. 2008; Deason et al. 2019; Han et al. 2022, Li et al. in prep.) and revealed a plethora of substructure, which in most cases is thought be debris from tidally…”
Iorio, G. (2024) · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · doi:10.5281/zenodo.11617741
Iorio, G. (2024) · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · doi:10.5281/zenodo.11992264
Iorio, G. (2024) · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · doi:10.5281/zenodo.12189733
Iorio, G. (2024) · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · doi:10.5281/zenodo.12188368
Metadata
- Authors
- Deason, A. J., Belokurov, V., & Sanders, J. L.
- Affiliations
- Durham University (GB)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Deason, Alis J
- Venue
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2019-10-07
- Volume
- 490
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 3426-3439
- ISSN
- 0035-8711 (ISSN-L)
- 1365-2966
- OpenAlex
- W2979777208
- Cited by
- 144
- References
- 91
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 9.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
- Locations
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (publishedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Apollo (University of Cambridge) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Apollo
- Funders
- Royal Society
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/P000541/1, ST/K00042X/1, ST/H008519/1, ST/K003267/1)
- European Space Agency
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
- Keywords
- Milky Way stellar halo, halo mass, red giant branch stars, metallicity distribution, Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, stellar mass-to-light ratio, Kroupa initial mass function, Gaia DR2
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