Probing the Outer Galactic Halo with RR Lyrae from the Catalina Surveys

We present analysis of 12,227 type-ab RR Lyraes (RRLs) found among the 200 million public light curves in Catalina Surveys Data Release 1. These stars span the largest volume of the Milky Way ever surveyed with RRLs, covering ~20,000 deg2 of the sky (0° 1500 of the RRLs. Using the accurate distances derived for the RRLs, we show the paths of the Sagittarius tidal streams crossing the sky at heliocentric distances from 20 to 60 kpc. By selecting samples of Galactic halo RRLs, we compare their velocity, metallicity, and distance with predictions from a recent detailed N-body model of the Sagittarius system. We find that there are some significant differences between the distances and structures predicted and our observations