Galactic Stellar Halo Luminosity Function

Abstract

We measure the luminosity function of the Milky Way’s stellar halo using a magnitude complete, tangential velocity-selected sample from Gaia DR3. The dimmest main sequence halo dwarfs (subdwarfs) found reach an absolute M _G magnitude near 14 mag, and the dimmest halo white dwarfs reach 15 mag. We find our stellar halo luminosity function compares well with these previous results, although with higher accuracy and less bias as our stellar halo sample contains more stars and probes a wider range of absolute magnitudes than these previous studies. In further efforts we will use this result to measure the Milky Way’s stellar halo mass function and mass-to-light ratio.