Investigating the vertical distribution of the disk as a function of radial action

¹ School of Physics, Shangqiu Normal University, 55 Pingyuan Road, Shangqiu 476000, PR China
e-mail: jiayunpeng11@mails.ucas.ac.cn
² CAS Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 20A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, PR China
³ School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19(A) Yuquan Road, Shijingshan District, Beijing 100049, PR China

Received: 22 December 2021
Accepted: 30 November 2022

Abstract

Aims. As heating processes can broaden the distributions of radial actions and the vertical distributions of the Galactic disks, we investigate the vertical distribution of the Galactic disks as a function of radial action based on Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) and Gaia data in order to deepen our understanding of the formation and heating history of the Galactic disks.

Methods. The vertical distributions of the thin and thick Galactic disks defined in the chemical plane were fitted with a simple exponential function with a free parameter of scale height in different radial action ranges. Therefore, we were able to analyze the scale height as a function of radial action for different disk populations.

Results. We find that the distributions of radial action for both the thin and thick disks can be approximately described by pseudo-isothermal distributions, which give a statistical measurement for the temperature of the disk as indicated by the mean radial action of the star sample. Estimations of the scale heights in different radial action ranges for these pseudo-isothermal distributions of the disks seem to show fixed relationships between radial action J_R and scale height h. We describe these relationships with a two-parameter function of h = √(J_R/a)+b, where a and b are free parameters. When testing with a three-parameter function of h = ^α√(J_R/a)+b, we find that this two-parameter function describes the thin disk well, but we note the function should be used with care for the thick disk. When comparing the best-fit relationships between the inner and outer disk for both of the thin and thick disks, we find that the relationships are nearly the same for the thin disks but are different for the thick disks. The inner thick disk shows a nearly flattened relationship, while the outer thick disk presents a gradually increasing relationship. This work highlights an alternative way to unveil the heating history of the disks by investigating the relationship between scale height and radial action, as these relationships encode the formation and heating history of the Galactic disks.