Measuring Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances with HST WFC3: Calibration and Advice
Abstract
We present new calibrations of the near-infrared surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) distance method for the F110W (J) and F160W (H) bandpasses of the Wide Field Camera 3 Infrared Channel (WFC3/IR) on the Hubble Space Telescope. The calibrations are based on data for 16 early-type galaxies in the Virgo and Fornax clusters observed with WFC3/IR and are provided as functions of both the optical (g-z) and near-infrared (J-H) colors. The scatter about the linear calibration relations for the luminous red galaxies in the sample is approximately 0.10 mag, corresponding to a statistical error of 5% in distance. Our results imply that the distance to any suitably bright elliptical galaxy can be measured with this precision out to about 80 Mpc in a single-orbit observation with WFC3/IR, making this a remarkably powerful instrument for extragalactic distances. The calibration sample also includes much bluer and lower-luminosity galaxies than previously used for IR SBF studies, revealing interesting population differences that cause the calibration scatter to increase for dwarf galaxies.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1505.00400,
title = {Measuring Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances with HST WFC3: Calibration and Advice},
author = {Joseph B. Jensen and John P. Blakeslee and Zachary Gibson and Hyun-chul Lee and Michele Cantiello and Gabriella Raimondo and Nathan Boyer and Hyejeon Cho},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.00400},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
19 pages, 11 figures; version accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal; revised version contains a number of clarifications and additional references