Where can I find an updated Milky Way density profile for my simulation?

[RCopernicus]

I'm trying to put together a realistic simulation of the Milky Way. Can anyone direct me to a database or something I can scrape in order to get the density profile?

 

[Vanadium 50]

That will be difficult, as we don't see the galaxy very well from the inside. It was only about a decade ago where we were pretty sure we live in a barred spiral.

 

[Astronuc]

As Vanadium indicated, a detailed model would be difficult based on what we cannot 'see', as well as the enormity of the galaxy ~ 3(+/-1) E11 stars.

However, there are attempts to understand the stellar distribution.

The Milky Way Tomography with SDSS. I. Stellar Number Density Distribution
http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/673/2/864/

Stellar Populations and the Formation of the Milky Way
By STEVEN R. MAJEWSKI
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/class/majewski/astr551/majewski.pdf

The Milky Way
http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~george/ay20/Ay20-Lec16x.pdf

One also needs are reasonable estimate of the rotation curve, or stellar velocity distribution
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March01/Battaner/node9.html

 

[Chronos]

The Milky Way also suffers from the central cusp/core density problem.

 

[RCopernicus]

#3
Astronuc
Thank you. That was very useful. Particularly the third link labeled "The Milky Way". A logarithmic density profile was what I needed.

The only problem is that some of the information, particularly about velocities, is a little dated. I found this velocity profile from 1985:

http://web.njit.edu/~gary/321/Lecture19.html

Does anyone know where I can find a more updated version. We must have better data about the velocities in our own galaxy in the last 29 years.