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Inferring Stellar Densities with Flexible Models I: The Distribution of RR Lyrae in the Milky Way with $\textit{Gaia}$ DR3
Madeline Lucey, Cecilia Mateu, Adrian Price-Whelan, David Hogg, Hans-Walter Rix, Robyn Sanderson
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03221

Inferring Stellar Densities with Flexible Models I: The Distribution of RR Lyrae in the Milky Way with $\textit{Gaia}$ DR3
Understanding the formation and evolutionary history of the Milky Way requires detailed mapping of its stellar components, which preserve fossil records of the Galaxy's assembly through cosmic time. RR Lyrae stars are particularly well-suited for this endeavor, as they are old, standard candle variables that probe the Galaxy's earliest formation epochs. In this work, we employ a hierarchical Bayesian Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) to characterize the three-dimensional density distribution of RR L…