VVV and the Large Scale Structure of the Universe

FERNANDA MILLA; JOSÉ LUIS NILO CASTELLÓN; LAURA DANIELA BARAVALLE; MARÍA VICTORIA ALONSO

Marbella, R. de Valparaiso

Congreso; XIV Annual Meeting 2017 SOCHIAS; 2017

SOCHIAS

The VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (hereafterVVV, Minniti et al. 2010) is a public ESO survey designedto study the structure of the Milky Way (MW),covering an area of 562 square degrees of the bulgeand an adjacent section of the mid-plane in five near-IR bands (Z, Y, J, H, Ks). Along the first years, the deepand quality of the data provided by the VVV survey,has allowed to obtain results in different areas of study,such as the detection of new globular clusters (Minnitiet al. 2011), news stellar open clusters (Borisova et al.2011; Borisova et al. 2014; Barbá et al. 2015), new browndwarfs (Beamin et al. 2013), and the confirmation of thegalaxy cluster Suzaku J1759-3450 (Coldwell et al, 2014)located behind the galactic bulge.In this work, we report preliminary results aboutthe discovery of a large concentration of galaxies in theZone of Avoidance (ZoA) near the Norma Cluster. Following the procedure describedin Baravalle et al. 2017, we were able to detectby visual inspection 3780 extended sources, with anelongated distribution, in the direction of the NormaCluster. This preliminary results suggest the existenceof a massive concentration of galaxies behind the MW,which must be confirmed using NIR spectroscopy.The discovery is made in the framework of an extensiveprogram that look for extragalactic sources inthe area covered by the VVV survey, (Baravalle et al.2017).