Other
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21541305z&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #413.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.250
Other
Scientific paper
Because the Milky Way is the primary laboratory for detailed exploration of the evolution of galaxies, understanding the complex structure and composition of its disk is a critical step toward defining its morphology and placing it properly within the extragalactic context. However, much of the disk structure and stellar population information lies hidden among and behind thick and clumpy dust clouds. We have found that a potent means for disentangling the stellar and interstellar dust distributions lies in the combination of near- and mid-infrared photometry, which, by sampling the Rayleigh-Jeans part of the stellar spectral energy distribution, has the ability to separate rather cleanly the intrinsic stellar characteristics from dust reddening effects. Here we describe the "Rayleigh-Jeans Color Excess" (RJCE) method, which has the advantage over other photometric dereddening techniques of preserving stellar type and luminosity class information for each star throughout the dereddening process. We apply the RJCE method to present not only new maps of the distribution of dust across the Galactic disk, but also "clean," reddening-corrected color magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of highly extinguished fields whose raw CMDs are not readily interpretable in a stellar populations context. Our RJCE extinction maps of the highly reddened Galactic midplane trace both the diffuse and filamentary extinction predicted by molecular emission much more accurately than the commonly used extinction maps derived from long-wavelength dust emission. We demonstrate how the retention of stellar type and luminosity information, discernible from our dereddened CMDs, facilitates three-dimensional, model-independent stellar and extinction mapping. This powerful technique and its data products will improve Galactic extinction corrections, facilitate target selection for prominent upcoming Galactic surveys, and enable exploration of elusive Galactic midplane structural and halo substructural features.
Majewski Steven R.
Nidever David L.
Zasowski Gail
No associations
LandOfFree
Exploring Extinction and Structure in the Milky Way Disk with the Rayleigh-Jeans Color Excess Method does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Exploring Extinction and Structure in the Milky Way Disk with the Rayleigh-Jeans Color Excess Method, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Exploring Extinction and Structure in the Milky Way Disk with the Rayleigh-Jeans Color Excess Method will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-965819