The Red Giant Branch Tip and Bump of the Leo II dwarf spheroidal galaxy

Details The Red Giant Branch Tip and Bump of the Leo II dwarf spheroidal galaxy The Red Giant Branch Tip and Bump of the Leo II dwarf spheroidal galaxy

2005-03-18

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0503418v1

Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 360 (2005) 185-193

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Accepted for publication by MNRAS. Latex, 10 pages, 8 .ps figures

Scientific paper

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09027.x

We present V and I photometry of a 9.4' X 9.4' field centered on the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Leo II. The Tip of the Red Giant Branch is identified at I^{TRGB}=17.83 +/- 0.03 and adopting <[M/H]> = -1.53 +/- 0.2 from the comparison of RGB stars with Galactic templates, we obtain a distance modulus (m-M)_0=21.84 +/- 0.13, corresponding to a distance D=233 +/- 15 Kpc. Two significant bumps have been detected in the Luminosity Function of the Red Giant Branch. The fainter bump (B1, at V=21.76 +/- 0.05) is the RGB bump of the dominant stellar population, while the actual nature of the brightest one (B2, at V=21.35 +/- 0.05) cannot be firmly assessed on the basis of the available data, it can be due to the Asymptotic Giant Branch Clump of the main population or it may be a secondary RGB bump. The luminosity of the main RGB bump (B1) suggests that the majority of RGB stars in Leo II belongs to a population that is ~4 gyr younger than the classical Galactic globular clusters. The stars belonging to the He-burning Red Clump are shown to be significantly more centrally concentrated than RR Lyrae and Blue Horizontal Branch stars, probing the existence of an age/metallicity radial gradient in this remote dwarf spheroidal.

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