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Detection of surface brightness fluctuations in NGC 4373 using the Hubble Space Telescope

Pahre, Michael A. and Mould, Jeremy R. and Dressler, Alan and Holtzman, Jon A. and Watson, Alan M. and Gallagher, John S., III and Ballester, Gilda E. and Burrows, Christopher J. and Casertano, Stefano and Clarke, John T. and Crisp, David and Griffiths, Richard E. and Grillmair, Carl J. and Hester, J. Jeff and Hoessel, John G. and Scowen, Paul A. and Stapelfeldt, Karl R. and Trauger, John T. and Westphal, James A. (1999) Detection of surface brightness fluctuations in NGC 4373 using the Hubble Space Telescope. Astrophysical Journal, 515 (1). pp. 79-88. ISSN 0004-637X. doi:10.1086/306998. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20150121-095415093

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Abstract

Surface brightness fluctuations (SBF) have been detected for three elliptical galaxies-NGC 3379 in the Leo group, NGC 4406 in the Virgo cluster, and NGC 4373 in the Hydra-Centaurus supercluster-using marginally sampled, deep images taken with the Planetary Camera of the WFPC2 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The power spectrum of the fluctuations image is well fitted by an empirical model of the point-spread function constructed using point sources identified in the held. Comparison with high-quality ground-based observations of all three galaxies show excellent agreement in the measurement of the distance modulus over a substantial range in distance. This demonstrates the capability of the Planetary Camera of WFPC2 to measure distances using the SBF technique despite the marginal sampling and small spatial coverage of the images. The residual variance due to unresolved sources in all three galaxies is only 2%-5% of the detected fluctuations signal, which confirms the advantage of HST imaging in minimizing the uncertainty of this SBF correction. Extensive consistency checks, including an independent SBF analysis using an alternate software package, suggest that our internal uncertainties are <0.02 mag. The fluctuations magnitude for NGC 4373 is /_(F814W) = 31.31±0.05 mag, corresponding to a distance modulus of (m-M)_0 = 32.99±0.11. This implies a peculiar velocity for this galaxy of 415±330 km s^(-1), which is smaller than derived from the D_n-σ relation.


Item Type:Article
Related URLs:
URLURL TypeDescription
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/306998DOIArticle
http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/515/1/79/PublisherArticle
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9809266arXivDiscussion Paper
ORCID:
AuthorORCID
Mould, Jeremy R.0000-0003-3820-1740
Gallagher, John S., III0000-0001-8608-0408
Crisp, David0000-0002-4573-9998
Grillmair, Carl J.0000-0003-4072-169X
Stapelfeldt, Karl R.0000-0002-2805-7338
Additional Information:© 1999 American Astronomical Society. Received 1997 November 25; accepted 1998 November 12. We acknowledge many helpful discussions with J. Blakeslee and G. Worthey, and the insightful comments and careful reading of the manuscript by the referee, J. Tonry. This work was supported by NASA grant NAS7-1260 to the WFPC2 IDT. M. A. P. received partial support from NSF grant AST-9157412 and Hubble Fellowship grant HF-01099.01-97A from STScI (which is operated by AURA under NASA contract).
Group:Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)
Funders:
Funding AgencyGrant Number
NASANAS7-1260
NSFAST-9157412
NASA Hubble FellowshipHF-01099.01-97A
NASANAS5-26555
Subject Keywords:galaxies : distances and redshifts; galaxies : elliptical and lenticular, cD; galaxies : individual (NGC 4373); galaxies : stellar content
Issue or Number:1
DOI:10.1086/306998
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:20150121-095415093
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20150121-095415093
Official Citation:Michael A. Pahre et al. 1999 ApJ 515 79
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:53936
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: Ruth Sustaita
Deposited On:21 Jan 2015 20:40
Last Modified:10 Nov 2021 20:25

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