Abstract The local standard of rest (LSR) provides a reference framework for studies of Galactic kinematics. Determination of the LSR corresponds to the measurement of solar peculiar motion, which is under debate due to the fact that different methods and samples have been used. Adopting the astrometric data and line-of-sight velocities of main sequence stars from Gaia DR2, we present a detailed analytical study of stellar kinematics in the solar neighborhood. Based on an improved version of the Strömberg relation, we obtain a robust estimation of the solar peculiar motion, which is given by (U⊙, V⊙, W⊙) = (8.63 ± 0.64, 4.76 ± 0.49, 7.26 ± 0.36) km s−1. The corresponding radial scalelength is yielded as Rd ∼ 2.5 kpc. The radial and vertical components of solar peculiar motion are basically consistent with the classical values, while the tangential component is a few km s−1 smaller than most estimates in literature.
Keywords astrometry — Galaxy: fundamental parameters — stars: kinematics and dynamics
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