Sharpening the Tip of the Red Giant Branch

We introduce a modified detection method for measuring the luminosity of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) by introducing the composite magnitude T = I - beta [(V - I) - 1.50], where beta is the slope of the tip magnitude as a function of color (or metallicity). The method is specifically desig...

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Veröffentlicht in:The Astrophysical journal 2009-01, Vol.690 (1), p.389-393
Hauptverfasser: Madore, Barry F, Mager, Violet, Freedman, Wendy L
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:We introduce a modified detection method for measuring the luminosity of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) by introducing the composite magnitude T = I - beta [(V - I) - 1.50], where beta is the slope of the tip magnitude as a function of color (or metallicity). The method is specifically designed to account for known systematics due to metallicity. In doing so, this simple transformation does away with arbitrary color selections in measuring the tip, and thereby significantly boosts the population of resolved stars that go into defining the TRGB distance. Moreover, this method coincidentally reduces the impact of reddening on the true modulus as well as its final uncertainty.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/690/1/389