SURFACE BRIGHTNESS FLUCTUATIONS IN THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE ACS/WFC F814W BANDPASS AND AN UPDATE ON GALAXY DISTANCES

Journal Article · Sat Nov 20 04:00:00 EST 2010 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/724/1/657· OSTI ID:21471156

Blakeslee, John P; Cote, Patrick; Ferrarese, Laura ^[1]; Cantiello, Michele ^[2]; Mei, Simona ^[3]; DeGraaff, Regina Barber; Worthey, Guy ^[4]; Jordan, Andres ^[5]; Peng, Eric W ^[6]

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1. Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7 (Canada)
2. INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Teramo, via M. Maggini, I-64100 Teramo (Italy)
3. University of Paris Denis Diderot, 75205 Paris Cedex 13 (France)
4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99163-2814 (United States)
5. Departamento de Astronomia y Astrofisica, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago 22 (Chile)
6. Department of Astronomy, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China)

We measure surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) magnitudes in the F814W filter and (g{sub 475} - I{sub 814}) colors for nine bright early-type Fornax cluster galaxies imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The goal is to achieve the first systematic SBF calibration for the ACS/F814W bandpass. Because of its much higher throughput, F814W is more efficient for SBF studies of distant galaxies than the ACS/F850LP bandpass that has been used to study nearby systems. Over the color range spanned by the sample galaxies, 1.06 < (g{sub 475} - I{sub 814}) < 1.32 (AB mag), the dependence of SBF magnitude m-bar{sub 814} on (g{sub 475} - I{sub 814}) is linear to a good approximation, with slope {approx}2. When the F850LP SBF distance measurements from the ACS Fornax Cluster Survey are used to derive absolute M-bar{sub 814} magnitudes, the dependence on (g{sub 475} - I{sub 814}) becomes extremely tight, with a slope of 1.8 {+-} 0.2 and a scatter of 0.03 mag. The small observed scatter indicates both that the estimated random errors are correct and that the intrinsic deviations from the SBF-color relation are strongly correlated between the F814W and F850LP bandpasses, as expected. The agreement with predictions from stellar population models is good, both in slope and zero point, indicating that our mean Fornax distance of 20 Mpc is accurate. The models predict curvature in the relation beyond the color limits of our sample; thus, the linear calibration should not be extrapolated naively. In the appendices, we reconsider the Tonry ground-based and Jensen NICMOS SBF distance catalogs; we provide a correction formula to ameliorate the small apparent bias in the former and the offset needed to make the latter consistent with other SBF studies. We also tabulate two new SBF distances to galaxies observed in the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey.

• OSTI ID: 21471156
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 724; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
APPROXIMATIONS
BRIGHTNESS
CALCULATION METHODS
CALIBRATION
CATALOGS
COLOR
DOCUMENT TYPES
GALAXIES
GALAXY CLUSTERS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
ORGANOLEPTIC PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RED SHIFT
TELESCOPES