Astrophysical Distance Scale VII: A Self-Consistent, Multi-Wavelength Calibration of the Slopes and Relative Zero Points for the Run of Luminosity with Color of Stars Defining the Tip of the Red Giant Branch

2023/11/08 by Madore, Barry F., Freedman, Wendy L., Owens, Kayla
#Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2311.05048

Abstract

Given the recent successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, determining robust calibrations of the slopes and absolute magnitudes of the near- to mid-infrared Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB) will be essential to measuring precise extragalactic distances via this method. Using ground-based data of the Large Magellanic Cloud from the Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey along with near-infrared (NIR) data from 2MASS and mid-infrared (MIR) data collected as a part of the SAGE survey using the Spitzer Space Telescope, we present slopes and zero-points for the TRGB in the optical (VI), NIR (JHK) and MIR ([3.6] & [4.5]) bandpasses. These calibrations utilize stars +0.3 +/- 0.1 mag below the tip, providing a substantial statistical improvement over previous calibrations which only used the sample of stars narrowly encompassing the tip.

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