Stellar density distribution in the NIR on the Galactic plane at longitudes 15-27 deg. Clues for the Galactic bar ?

Garzón et al. (1997), López-Corredoira et al. (1999) and Hammersley et al. (2000) have identified in TMGS and DENIS data a large excess of stars at l=27◦ and b=0◦ which might correspond to an in-plane bar. We compared near infrared CAIN star counts and simulations from the Besançon Model of Galaxy on 15 fields between 15◦ and 45◦ in longitude and -2◦ and 2◦ in latitude. Comparisons confirm the existence of an overdensity at longitudes lower than 27◦ which is inhomogeneous and decreases very steeply off the Galactic plane. The observed excess in the star distribution over the predicted density is even higher than 100%. Its distance from the sun is estimated to be lower than 6 kpc. If this overdensity corresponds to the stellar population of the bar, we estimate its half-length to 3.9±0.4 kpc and its angle from the Sun-center direction to 45±9 degrees.