Published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of
Australia, Volume 29, Issue 4, pp. 489-508, 2012.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1205.1498
For a PDF version of the article, click here.
DISTANCE MEASUREMENTS AND STELLAR POPULATION PROPERTIES VIA SURFACE
BRIGHTNESS FLUCTUATIONS
Alexander Fritz A, B, C
A Gemini
Observatory, 670 N. A’ohoku Place, Hilo, HI
96720, USA
B Istituto
Nazionale di Astrofisica –
Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica
Milano, Via E. Bassini 15, 20133 Milano, Italy
C VIPERS Fellow;
Abstract: Surface Brightness Fluctuations (SBFs) are one of the
most powerful techniques to measure the distance and to constrain the
unresolved stellar content of extragalactic systems. For a given
bandpass, the absolute SBF magnitude
depends on
the properties of the underlying stellar population. Multi-band SBFs allow
scientists to probe different stages of the stellar evolution:
UV and blue wavelength band SBFs are sensitive to the evolution of stars
within the hot Horizontal Branch (HB) and post-Asymptotic Giant Branch
(post-AGB) phase, whereas optical SBF magnitudes explore the stars
within the Red Giant Branch (RGB) and HB regime. Near- and Far-infrared
SBF luminosities probe the important stellar evolution stage within the
AGB and Thermally-Pulsating Asymptotic Giant Branch (TP-AGB) phase.
Since the first successful application by Tonry and Schneider,
a multiplicity of works have used this method to expand the
distance scale up to 150 Mpc and beyond.
This article gives a historical background of distance measurements,
reviews the basic concepts of the SBF technique, presents a broad sample
of these investigations and discusses possible selection effects,
biases, and limitations of the method. In particular, exciting new
developments and improvements in the field of stellar population
synthesis are discussed that are essential to understand the physics and
properties of the populations in unresolved stellar systems. Further,
promising future directions of the SBF technique are presented. With new
upcoming space-based satellites such as Gaia, the SBF method
will remain as one of the most important tools to derive distances to
galaxies with unprecedented accuracy and to give detailed insights into
the stellar content of globular clusters and galaxies.
Keywords: cosmology: distance scale —
galaxies: distances and redshifts — galaxies: stellar content
— galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD —
galaxies: fundamental parameters — stars: statistics
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