The SEGUE K giant survey. II. Distances of 6036 stars Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Xue X.-X.
  2. Ma Z.
  3. Rix H.-W.
  4. Morrison H.L.
  5. Harding P.
  6. Beers T.C.,Ivans I.I.
  7. Jacobson H.R.
  8. Johnson J.
  9. Lee Y.S.
  10. Lucatello S.,Rockosi C.M.
  11. Sobeck J.S.
  12. Yanny B.
  13. Zhao G.
  14. Allende Prieto C.
  15. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

We present an online catalog of distance determinations for 6036 K giants, most of which are members of the Milky Way's stellar halo. Their medium-resolution spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey/Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration are used to derive metallicities and rough gravity estimates, along with radial velocities. Distance moduli are derived from a comparison of each star's apparent magnitude with the absolute magnitude of empirically calibrated color-luminosity fiducials, at the observed (g-r)_0_ color and spectroscopic [Fe/H]. We employ a probabilistic approach that makes it straightforward to properly propagate the errors in metallicities, magnitudes, and colors into distance uncertainties. We also fold in prior information about the giant-branch luminosity function and the different metallicity distributions of the SEGUE K-giant targeting sub-categories. We show that the metallicity prior plays a small role in the distance estimates, but that neglecting the luminosity prior could lead to a systematic distance modulus bias of up to 0.25mag, compared to the case of using the luminosity prior. We find a median distance precision of 16%, with distance estimates most precise for the least metal-poor stars near the tip of the red giant branch. The precision and accuracy of our distance estimates are validated with observations of globular and open clusters. The stars in our catalog are up to 125kpc from the Galactic center, with 283 stars beyond 50kpc, forming the largest available spectroscopic sample of distant tracers in the Galactic halo.

Keywords
  1. milky-way-galaxy
  2. halo-stars
  3. k-stars
  4. giant-stars
  5. metallicity
  6. radial-velocity
  7. stellar-distance
  8. visible-astronomy
  9. sloan-photometry
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2014ApJ...784..170X
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/784/170
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/784/170
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.17840170

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/784/170
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/784/170
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/784/170
IVOA Table Access TAP
http://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/784/170/table4?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/784/170/table4?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/784/170/table4?

History

2016-08-05T12:38:00Z
Resource record created
2016-08-05T12:38:00Z
Created
2017-08-29T15:24:44Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr