J/ApJ/703/L72 Hipparcos calibration of the TRGB (Tabur+, 2009)
Hipparcos calibration of the tip of the red giant branch.
Tabur V., Kiss L.L., Bedding T.R.
<Astrophys. J. 703, L72-L75 (2009)>
=2009ApJ...703L..72T 2009ApJ...703L..72T
ADC_Keywords: Parallaxes, trigonometric; Photometry, infrared
Keywords: stars: AGB and post-AGB - stars: late-type - stars: variables: other -
solar neighborhood - distance scale
Abstract:
We have detected the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) in the solar
neighborhood using near-infrared photometry from the Two Micron All
Sky Survey (II/246) and DIRBE (J/ApJS/154/673) catalogs, and revised
Hipparcos parallaxes. We confirm that the revised Hipparcos parallaxes
are superior to the original ones, and that this improvement is
necessary to detect the TRGB. We find a tip absolute magnitude of
MK=-6.85±0.03, in agreement with that expected from previous tip
measurements of the Large Magellanic Cloud, Small Magellanic Cloud,
and Bulge. This represents the first geometric calibration of the
TRGB and extends previous calibrations, based on metal-poor globular
clusters, to solar metallicities. We attempted to use the TRGB to
confirm the presence of the Lutz-Kelker bias, with inconclusive
results. Attempts to detect the tip in the I band also produced
inconsistent results, due to a lack of precise, homogeneous photometry
for these bright stars.
Description:
These files contain stars selected from the revised Hipparcos catalog
with relative parallax uncertainties less than 25%, cross-matched with
near infrared photometry from the 2MASS and DIRBE catalogs.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
2mass.dat 112 69616 Hipparcos cross-matched to 2MASS
dirbe.dat 112 2861 Hipparcos cross-matched to DIRBE
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See also:
I/239 : The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues (ESA 1997)
I/311 : Hipparcos, the New Reduction (van Leeuwen, 2007)
II/246 : 2MASS All-Sky Catalog of Point Sources (Cutri+ 2003)
J/ApJS/154/673 : COBE DIRBE Point Source Catalog (Smith+, 2004)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: 2mass.dat dirbe.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 6 I6 --- HIP Hipparcos identification number
8- 20 F13.10 rad RArad Revised Hipparcos Right Ascension
(ICRS, Ep=1991.25)
22- 34 F13.10 rad DErad Revised Hipparcos Declination (ICRS, Ep=J1991.25)
36- 41 F6.2 mas plxo Parallax, original reduction (1)
43- 47 F5.2 mas e_plxo Parallax uncertainty, original reduction (1)
49- 54 F6.2 mas plx Parallax, revised (2)
56- 60 F5.2 mas e_plx Parallax uncertainty, revised (2)
62- 66 F5.3 mag AK Interstellar extinction, K-band
68- 84 A17 --- Name 2MASS/DIRBE identifier
86- 91 F6.3 mag Jmag J-band apparent magnitude
94- 98 F5.3 mag e_Jmag ?=0.000 J-band apparent magnitude uncertainty (3)
100-105 F6.3 mag Kmag K-band apparent magnitude
107-112 F6.3 mag e_Kmag ?=99.900 K-band apparent magnitude uncertainty
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Note (1): Perryman et al., 1997, HIP, Cat. I/239
Note (2): van Leeuwen, 2007, Cat. I/311 (VizieR version dated 2008 Sep 15)
Note (3): e_Jmag set to 0 for DIRBE (not extracted from original catalog)
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Acknowledgements:
Vello Tabur, vello(at)pcug.org.au
(End) Vello Tabur [Univ. Sydney], Patricia Vannier [CDS] 21-Sep-2009