The Near-infrared Tip of the Red Giant Branch. II. An Absolute Calibration in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Abstract
We present a new empirical JHK absolute calibration of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We use published data from the extensive Near-Infrared Synoptic Survey containing 3.5 million stars, 65,000 of which are red giants that fall within one magnitude of the TRGB. Adopting the TRGB slopes from a companion study of the isolated dwarf galaxy IC 1613, as well as an LMC distance modulus of μ 0 = 18.49 mag from (geometric) detached eclipsing binaries, we derive absolute JHK zero points for the near-infrared TRGB. For a comparison with measurements in the bar alone, we apply the calibrated JHK TRGB to a 500 deg2 area of the 2MASS survey. The TRGB reveals the 3D structure of the LMC with a tilt in the direction perpendicular to the major axis of the bar, which is in agreement with previous studies.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- May 2018
- DOI:
- 10.3847/1538-4357/aab7ed
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1803.01277
- Bibcode:
- 2018ApJ...858...12H
- Keywords:
-
- distance scale;
- galaxies: distances and redshifts;
- galaxies: stellar content;
- infrared: stars;
- Magellanic Clouds;
- stars: Population II;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies;
- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 14 pages, 8 figures, Accepted to ApJ