Optimal column density measurements from multiband near-infrared observations

Details Optimal column density measurements from multiband near-infrared observations Optimal column density measurements from multiband near-infrared observations

2005-04-14

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0504322v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

20 pages; A&A in press

Scientific paper

10.1051/0004-6361:20042267

We consider from a general point of view the problem of determining the extinction in dense molecular clouds. We use a rigorous statistical approach to characterize the properties of the most widely used optical and infrared techniques, namely the star count and the color excess methods. We propose a new maximum-likelihood method that takes advantage of both star counts and star colors to provide an optimal estimate of the extinction. Detailed numerical simulations show that our method performs optimally under a wide range of conditions and, in particular, is significantly superior to the standard techniques for clouds with high column-densities and affected by contamination by foreground stars.

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