On the Color-Metallicity Relation of the Red Clump and the Reddening toward the Magellanic Clouds
Journal
Date Issued
2021
Author(s)
Abstract
The zero point of the reddening toward the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) has been the subject of some dispute. Its uncertainty propagates as a systematic error for methods that measure the extragalactic distance scale through knowledge of the absolute extinction of LMC stars. In an effort to resolve this issue, we used three different methods to calibrate the most widely used metric to predict LMC extinction, the intrinsic color of the red clump, (V - I)RC,0, for the inner ∼3° of that galaxy. The first approach was to empirically calibrate the color zero points of the BaSTI isochrones over a wide metallicity range of Δ[Fe/H] ≍ 1.10 using measurements of red clump stars in 47 Tuc, the solar neighborhood, and NGC 6791. From these efforts, we also measure these properties of the solar neighborhood red clump, (V - I, GBP - Ks, G - Ks, GRP - Ks, J - Ks, H - Ks, MI, MKs)RC,0 = (1.02, 2.75, 2.18, 1.52, 0.64, 0.15, -0.23, -1.63). The second and third methods were to compare the observed colors of the red clump to those of Cepheids and RR Lyrae in the LMC. With these three methods, we estimated the intrinsic color of the red clump of the LMC to be (V - I)RC,0,LMC = {≍0.93, 0.91 ± 0.02, 0.89 ± 0.02}, respectively, and similarly, using the first and third methods, we estimated (V - I)RC,0,SMC = {≍0.85, 0.84 ± 0.02}, respectively, for the Small Magellanic Cloud. We estimate the luminosities to be MI,RC,LMC = -0.26 and MI,RC,SMC = -0.37. We show that this has important implications for recent calibrations of the tip of the red giant branch in the Magellanic Clouds used to measure H0.
Volume
910
Issue
2
Start page
121
Issn Identifier
0004-637X
Ads BibCode
2021ApJ...910..121N
Rights
open.access
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
Nataf_2021_ApJ_910_121.pdf
Description
Pdf editoriale
Size
1.48 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6a4ff293e75b253e3549c56c1520b3c6