Tracing the Sagittarius Tidal Streams in Carbon Long Period Variables

Avon Huxor & Eva Grebel (ARI, Heidelberg, Germany)

We have assembled a sample of~120 pectroscopically confirmed AGB carbon stars from the literature, exhibiting measurable variability in the Catalina Surveys. The period and amplitudes are used to estimate distances, exploiting known period-luminosity relationships. We compare the locations of these stars, and radial velocities where available, to computer models of the Sagittarius dSph accretion. We find that the data match the Law & Majewski model for the leading arm, but we fail to find the trailing arm north of the Galactic Plane. Our result supports more recent models in which the trailing arm apocentre reaches to ~100 kpc. Our data also suggests that there are few, if any, other intermediate-age stellar substructures in the Catalina footprint.