We present new Stromgren and Washington data sets for the Bootes I dwarf galaxy, and combine them with the available SDSS photometry. The goal of this project is to refine a ground-based, practical, accurate method to determine age and metallicity for individual stars in Bootes I that can be selected in an unbiased imaging survey, without having to take spectra. We produce photometric metallicities from Stromgren and Washington photometry, for stellar systems with a range of −1.0>[Fe/H]>−3.5. To avoid the decrease in sensitivity of the Stromgren metallicity index on the lower red-giant branch, we replace the Stromgren v-filter with the broader Washington C-filter; we find that CT1by is the most successful filter combination, for individual stars with [Fe/H]<−2.0, to maintain ~0.2 dex [Fe/H]-resolution over the whole red-giant branch. We demonstrate that we can break the isochrones' age-metallicity degeneracy with these filters, using stars with log g=2.5-3.0, which have less than a 2% change in their (C−T1)-colour due to age, over a range of 11-14 Gyr.
@article{arxiv.1401.3389,
title = {Photometric Metallicities in Bootes I},
author = {J. Hughes and G. Wallerstein and A. Dotter and D. Geisler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1401.3389},
year = {2014}
}