Journal
ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL
Volume 148, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
IOP Publishing Ltd
DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/148/1/24
Keywords
dust, extinction; Galaxy: bulge; Galaxy: stellar content; Galaxy: structure
Categories
Funding
- NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship [AST-1203017]
- Physics Frontier Center/Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA) [PHY 08-22648]
- U.S. National Science Foundation
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Participating Institutions
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science
- [ANR-12-BS05-0015-01]
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1203017] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1109718] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Physics
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1430152] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Galactic interstellar extinction maps are powerful and necessary tools for Milky Way structure and stellar population analyses, particularly toward the heavily reddened bulge and in the midplane. However, due to the difficulty of obtaining reliable extinction measures and distances for a large number of stars that are independent of these maps, tests of their accuracy and systematics have been limited. Our goal is to assess a variety of photometric stellar extinction estimates, including both two-dimensional and three-dimensional extinction maps, using independent extinction measures based on a large spectroscopic sample of stars toward the Milky Way bulge. We employ stellar atmospheric parameters derived from high-resolution H-band Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) spectra, combined with theoretical stellar isochrones, to calculate line-of-sight extinction and distances for a sample of more than 2400 giants toward the Milky Way bulge. We compare these extinction values to those predicted by individual near-IR and near+mid-IR stellar colors, two-dimensional bulge extinction maps, and three-dimensional extinction maps. The long baseline, near+mid-IR stellar colors are, on average, the most accurate predictors of the APOGEE extinction estimates, and the two-dimensional and three-dimensional extinction maps derived from different stellar populations along different sightlines show varying degrees of reliability. We present the results of all of the comparisons and discuss reasons for the observed discrepancies. We also demonstrate how the particular stellar atmospheric models adopted can have a strong impact on this type of analysis, and discuss related caveats.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available