6 research outputs found
The Metallicity and Reddening of Stars in the Inner Galactic Bulge
We present a preliminary analysis of K, J-K color magnitude diagrams (CMDs)
for 7 different positions on or close to the minor axis of the Milky Way at
Galactic latitudes between +0.1^\circ and -2.8^\circ. From the slopes of the
(linear) giant branches in these CMDs we derive a dependence of on
latitude for b between -0.8^\circ and -2.8^\circ of -0.085 \pm 0.033
dex/degree. When combined with the data from Tiede et al. we find for
-0.8^\circ \leq b \leq -10.3^\circ the slope in is -0.064 \pm 0.012
dex/degree. An extrapolation to the Galactic Center predicts [Fe/H] = +0.034
\pm 0.053 dex. We also derive average values for the extinction in the K band
(A_K) of between 2.15 and 0.27 for the inner bulge fields corresponding to
average values of E(J-K) of between 3.46 and 0.44. There is a well defined
linear relation between the average extinction for a field and the star-to-star
scatter in the extinction for the stars within each field. This result suggests
that the typical apparent angular scale size for an absorbing cloud is small
compared with the field size (90\arcsec on a side). Finally, from an
examination of the luminosity function of bright giants in each field we
conclude that the young component of the stellar population observed near the
Galactic center declines in density much more quickly than the overall bulge
population and is undetectable beyond 1^\circ from the Galactic center.Comment: accepted for publication in Astron. Jour. Compressed file contains
the text, 9 figures, and 6 tables prepared with AAS Latex macros v. 4.
The Frequency of Barred Spiral Galaxies in the Near-IR
We have determined the fraction of barred galaxies in the H-band for a
statistically well-defined sample of 186 spirals drawn from the Ohio State
University Bright Spiral Galaxy survey. We find 56% of our sample to be
strongly barred at H, while another 16% is weakly barred. Only 27% of our
sample is unbarred in the near-infrared. The RC3 and the Carnegie Atlas of
Galaxies both classify only about 30% of our sample as strongly barred. Thus
strong bars are nearly twice as prevalent in the near-infrared as in the
optical. The frequency of genuine optically hidden bars is significant, but
lower than many claims in the literature: 40% of the galaxies in our sample
that are classified as unbarred in the RC3 show evidence for a bar in the
H-band, while for the Carnegie Atlas this fraction is 66%. Our data reveal no
significant trend in bar fraction as a function of morphology in either the
optical or H-band. Optical surveys of high redshift galaxies may be strongly
biased against finding bars, as bars are increasingly difficult to detect at
bluer rest wavelengths.Comment: LaTeX with AASTeX style file, 23 pages with 6 figures. Accepted for
publication in The Astronomical Journal (Feb. 2000