27 research outputs found
On the self-consistent physical parameters of LMC intermediate-age clusters
The LMC clusters are unique templates of simple stellar population (SSP),
being crucial to calibrate models describing the integral light as well as to
test the stellar evolution theory. With this in mind we analyzed HST/WFPC2 (V,
B--V) colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of 15 populous LMC clusters with ages
between ~0.3 Gyr and ~4 Gyr using different stellar evolutionary models
(Padova, PEL or Pisa, BaSTI or Teramo). Following the approach described by
Kerber, Santiago & Brocato (2007), we determined accurate and self-consistent
physical parameters (age, metallicity, distance modulus and reddening) for each
cluster by comparing the observed CMDs with synthetic ones. We found
significant trends in the physical parameters due to the choice of stellar
evolutionary model and treatment of convective core overshooting. In general,
models that incorporate overshooting presented more reliable results than those
that do not. Comparisons with the results found in the literature demonstrated
that our derived metallicities are in good agreement with the ones from the
spectroscopy of red giants. We also confirmed that, independent of the adopted
stellar evolutionary library, the recovered 3D distribution for these clusters
is consistent with a thick disk roughly aligned with the LMC disk as defined by
field stars. Finally, we also provide new estimates of distance modulus to the
LMC center, that are marginally consistent with the canonical value of 18.50.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, conference contribution to IAU Symposium 256, van
Loon J.T. & Oliviera J.M., ed
Self-consistent physical parameters for MC clusters from CMD modelling: application to SMC clusters observed with the SOAR telescope
The Magellanic Clouds (MCs) present a rich system of stellar clusters that
can be used to probe the dynamical and chemical evolution of these neighboring
and interacting irregular galaxies. In particular, these stellar clusters (SCs)
present combinations of age and metallicity that are not found for this class
of objects in the Milky Way, being therefore very useful templates to test and
to calibrate integrated light simple stellar population (SSP) models applied to
unresolved distance galaxies. On its turn, the age and metallicity for a
cluster can be determined spatially resolving its stars, by means of analysis
of its colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs). In this work we present our method to
determine self-consistent physical parameters (age, metallicity, distance
modulus and reddening) for a stellar cluster, from CMDs modelling of relatively
unstudied SCs in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) imaged in the BVI filters
with the 4.1 m SOAR telescope. Our preliminary results confirm our expectations
that come from a previous integrated spectra and colour analysis: at least one
of them (Lindsay 2) is an intermediate-age stellar cluster with ~ 2.6 Gyr and
[Fe/H] ~ -1.3, being therefore a new interesting witness regarding the
reactivation of the star formation in the MCs in the last 4 Gyr.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To be published in the proceedings of IAUS256:
The Magellanic System: Stars, Gas, and Galaxie
On the accuracy of the Perturbative Approach for Strong Lensing: Local Distortion for Pseudo-Elliptical Models
The Perturbative Approach (PA) introduced by \citet{alard07} provides
analytic solutions for gravitational arcs by solving the lens equation
linearized around the Einstein ring solution. This is a powerful method for
lens inversion and simulations in that it can be used, in principle, for
generic lens models. In this paper we aim to quantify the domain of validity of
this method for three quantities derived from the linearized mapping: caustics,
critical curves, and the deformation cross section (i.e. the arc cross section
in the infinitesimal circular source approximation). We consider lens models
with elliptical potentials, in particular the Singular Isothermal Elliptic
Potential and Pseudo-Elliptical Navarro--Frenk--White models. We show that the
PA is exact for this first model. For the second, we obtain constraints on the
model parameter space (given by the potential ellipticity parameter
and characteristic convergence ) such that the PA is
accurate for the aforementioned quantities. In this process we obtain analytic
expressions for several lensing functions, which are valid for the PA in
general. The determination of this domain of validity could have significant
implications for the use of the PA, but it still needs to be probed with
extended sources.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
A simple prescription for simulating and characterizing gravitational arcs
Simple models of gravitational arcs are crucial to simulate large samples of
these objects with full control of the input parameters. These models also
provide crude and automated estimates of the shape and structure of the arcs,
which are necessary when trying to detect and characterize these objects on
massive wide area imaging surveys. We here present and explore the ArcEllipse,
a simple prescription to create objects with shape similar to gravitational
arcs. We also present PaintArcs, which is a code that couples this geometrical
form with a brightness distribution and adds the resulting object to images.
Finally, we introduce ArcFitting, which is a tool that fits ArcEllipses to
images of real gravitational arcs. We validate this fitting technique using
simulated arcs and apply it to CFHTLS and HST images of tangential arcs around
clusters of galaxies. Our simple ArcEllipse model for the arc, associated to a
S\'ersic profile for the source, recovers the total signal in real images
typically within 10%-30%. The ArcEllipse+S\'ersic models also automatically
recover visual estimates of length-to-width ratios of real arcs. Residual maps
between data and model images reveal the incidence of arc substructure. They
may thus be used as a diagnostic for arcs formed by the merging of multiple
images. The incidence of these substructures is the main factor preventing
ArcEllipse models from accurately describing real lensed systems.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in A&
StarHorse: A Bayesian tool for determining stellar masses, ages, distances, and extinctions for field stars
Understanding the formation and evolution of our Galaxy requires accurate
distances, ages and chemistry for large populations of field stars. Here we
present several updates to our spectro-photometric distance code, that can now
also be used to estimate ages, masses, and extinctions for individual stars.
Given a set of measured spectro-photometric parameters, we calculate the
posterior probability distribution over a given grid of stellar evolutionary
models, using flexible Galactic stellar-population priors. The code (called
{\tt StarHorse}) can acommodate different observational datasets, prior
options, partially missing data, and the inclusion of parallax information into
the estimated probabilities. We validate the code using a variety of simulated
stars as well as real stars with parameters determined from asteroseismology,
eclipsing binaries, and isochrone fits to star clusters. Our main goal in this
validation process is to test the applicability of the code to field stars with
known {\it Gaia}-like parallaxes. The typical internal precision (obtained from
realistic simulations of an APOGEE+Gaia-like sample) are in
distance, in age, in mass, and mag in
. The median external precision (derived from comparisons with earlier
work for real stars) varies with the sample used, but lies in the range of
for distances, for ages,
for masses, and mag for . We provide StarHorse distances and
extinctions for the APOGEE DR14, RAVE DR5, GES DR3 and GALAH DR1 catalogues.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures, accepte
The tidal tails of NGC 2298
We present an implementation of the matched-filter technique to detect tidal
tails of globular clusters. The method was tested using SDSS data for the
globular cluster Palomar 5 revealing its well known tidal tails. We also ran a
simulation of a globular cluster with a tidal tail where we successfully
recover the tails for a cluster at the same position and with the same
characteristics of NGC 2298. Based on the simulation we estimate that the
matched-filter increases the contrast of the tail relative to the background of
stars by a factor of 2.5 for the case of NGC 2298. We also present the
photometry of the globular cluster NGC 2298 using the MOSAIC2 camera installed
on the CTIO 4m telescope. The photometry covers ~ 3deg2 reaching V ~ 23. A fit
of a King profile to the radial density profile of NGC 2298 shows that this
cluster has a tidal radius of 15.91' \pm 1.07' which is twice as in the
literature. The application of the matched-filter to NGC 2298 reveals several
extra-tidal structures, including a leading and trailing tail. We also find
that NGC 2298 has extra-tidal structures stretching towards and against the
Galactic disk, suggesting strong tidal interaction. Finally, we assess how the
matched-filter performs when applied to a globular cluster with and without
mass segregation taken into account. We find that disregarding the effects of
mass segregation may significantly reduce the detection limit of the
matched-filter.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication on MNRAS main
journa
The Metallicity Distribution Functions of SEGUE G and K dwarfs: Constraints for Disk Chemical Evolution and Formation
We present the metallicity distribution function (MDF) for 24,270 G and
16,847 K dwarfs at distances from 0.2 to 2.3 kpc from the Galactic plane, based
on spectroscopy from the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and
Exploration (SEGUE) survey. This stellar sample is significantly larger in both
number and volume than previous spectroscopic analyses, which were limited to
the solar vicinity, making it ideal for comparison with local volume-limited
samples and Galactic models. For the first time, we have corrected the MDF for
the various observational biases introduced by the SEGUE target selection
strategy. The SEGUE sample is particularly notable for K dwarfs, which are too
faint to examine spectroscopically far from the solar neighborhood. The MDF of
both spectral types becomes more metal-poor with increasing |Z|, which reflects
the transition from a sample with small [alpha/Fe] values at small heights to
one with enhanced [alpha/Fe] above 1 kpc. Comparison of our SEGUE distributions
to those of two different Milky Way models reveals that both are more
metal-rich than our observed distributions at all heights above the plane. Our
unbiased observations of G and K dwarfs provide valuable constraints over the
|Z|-height range of the Milky Way disk for chemical and dynamical Galaxy
evolution models, previously only calibrated to the solar neighborhood, with
particular utility for thin- and thick-disk formation models.Comment: 70 pages, 25 figures, 7 tables. Accepted by The Astrophysical Journa
Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe
We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratios in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median ). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGNs and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at the Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in 2016 July