We present and apply a method to infer the mass of the Milky Way (MW) by comparing the dynamics of MW satellites to those of model satellites in the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamics simulations. A distribution function (DF) for galactic satellites is constructed from EAGLE using specific angular momentum and specific energy, which are scaled so as to be independent of host halo mass. In this 2-dimensional space, the orbital properties of satellite galaxies vary according to the host halo mass. The halo mass can be inferred by calculating the likelihood that the observed satellite population is drawn from this DF. Our method is robustly calibrated on mock EAGLE systems. We validate it by applying it to the completely independent suite of 30 AURIGA high-resolution simulations of MW-like galaxies: the method accurately recovers their true mass and associated uncertainties. We then apply it to ten classical satellites of the MW with 6D phase-space measurements, including updated proper motions from the Gaia satellite. The mass of the MW is estimated to be M MW 200 = 1.17 +0.21 −0.15 × 10 12 M (68% confidence limits). We combine our total mass estimate with recent mass estimates in the inner regions of the Galaxy to infer an inner dark matter (DM) mass fraction M DM (< 20 kpc)/M DM 200 = 0.12 which is typical of ∼10 12 M ΛCDM haloes in hydrodynamical galaxy formation simulations. Assuming an NFW profile, this is equivalent to a halo concentration of c MW 200 = 10.9 +2.6 −2.0 .

We introduce a multi-component chemo-dynamical method for splitting the Galactic population of Globular Clusters (GCs) into three distinct constituents: bulge, disc, and stellar halo. The latter is further decomposed into the individual large accretion events that built up the Galactic stellar halo: the Gaia-Enceladus-Sausage, Kraken and Sequoia structures, and the Sagittarius and Helmi streams. Our modelling is extensively tested using mock GC samples constructed from the auriga suite of hydrodynamical simulations of Milky Way (MW)-like galaxies. We find that, on average, a proportion of the accreted GCs cannot be associated with their true infall group and are left ungrouped, biasing our recovered population numbers to $\sim 80{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of their true value. Furthermore, the identified groups have a completeness and a purity of only $\sim 65{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$. This reflects the difficulty of the problem, a result of the large degree of overlap in energy-action space of the debris from past accretion events. We apply the method to the Galactic data to infer, in a statistically robust and easily quantifiable way, the GCs associated with each MW accretion event. The resulting groups’ population numbers of GCs, corrected for biases, are then used to infer the halo and stellar masses of the now defunct satellites that built up the halo of the MW.

We study the orbital phase-space of dark matter (DM) halos in the auriga suite of cosmological hydrodynamics simulations of Milky Way analogues. We characterise halos by their spherical action distribution, F (J r , L), a function of the specific angular momentum, L, and the radial action, J r , of the DM particles. By comparing DM-only and hydrodynamical simulations of the same halos, we investigate the contraction of DM halos caused by the accumulation of baryons at the centre. We find a small systematic suppression of the radial action in the DM halos of the hydrodynamical simulations, suggesting that the commonly used adiabatic contraction approximation can result in an underestimate of the density by ∼ 8%. We apply an iterative algorithm to contract the auriga DM halos given a baryon density profile and halo mass, recovering the true contracted DM profiles with an accuracy of ∼ 15%, that reflects halo-to-halo variation. Using this algorithm, we infer the total mass profile of the Milky Way's contracted DM halo. We derive updated values for the key astrophysical inputs to DM direct detection experiments: the DM density and velocity distribution in the Solar neighbourhood.

Context. Debris from past merger events is expected and also known, to some extent, to populate the stellar halo near the Sun. Aims. We aim to identify and characterise such merger debris using Gaia DR3 data supplemented with metallicity and chemical abundance data from LAMOST LRS and APOGEE for halo stars within 2.5 kpc from the Sun. Methods. We utilised a single linkage-based clustering algorithm to identify over-densities in the integrals of motion space that could be due to merger debris. Combined with metallicity information and chemical abundances, we characterised these statistically significant over-densities. Results. We find that the local stellar halo contains seven main dynamical groups, with some of them shown to be in situ and some of accreted origin, most of which are already known. We report the discovery of a new substructure, which we dubbed ED-1. In addition, we find evidence for 11 independent smaller clumps, 5 of which are new: ED-2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and typically rather tight dynamically. We identify their narrow range of metallicities, along with their abundances when available, as well as their locations in the integrals of motion space, which are suggestive of an accreted origin. Conclusions. The local halo contains an important amount of substructure of both in situ and accreted origins.