Joint Analysis of near-infrared properties and surface brightness fluctuations of LMC star clusters

Abstract

Surface brightness fluctuations have been proved to be a very powerful technique to determine the distance and characterize the stellar content in extragalactic systems. Nevertheless, before facing the problem of stellar content in distant galaxies, we need to calibrate the method onto nearby well-known systems. In this paper we analyze the properties at $J$ and $K_s$ bands of a sample of 19 star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), for which accurate near-infrared (NIR) resolved star photometry, and integrated photometry are available. For the same sample, we derive the SBF measurements in $J$ and $K_s$-bands. We use the multi-purpose stellar population code \emph{SPoT (Stellar POpulations Tools)} to simulate the color-magnitude diagram, stellar counts, integrated magnitudes, colors, and surface brightness fluctuations of each cluster. The present procedure allows us to estimate the age and metallicity of the clusters in a consistent way, and provides a new calibration of the empirical $s$-parameter. We take advantage of the high sensitivity of NIR surface brightness fluctuations to thermally pulsing asymptotic (TP-AGB) stars to test different mass-loss rates affecting the evolution of such stars. We argue that NIR-SBFs can contribute to the disentangling of the observable properties of TP-AGB stars, especially in galaxies, where a large number of these stars are present.

25 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables, Accepted for publication in ApJ

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• The CosmoVerse White Paper: Addressing observational tensions in cosmology with systematics and fundamental physics
• The Hubble Constant from Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances
• The TRGB-SBF Project. III. Refining the HST Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distance Scale Calibration with JWST
• Detailed AGB evolutionary models and near infrared colours of intermediate-age stellar populations: Tests on star clusters
• Surface Brightness Fluctuations as Primary and Secondary Distance Indicators
• Euclid: Early Release Observations -- Overview of the Perseus cluster and analysis of its luminosity and stellar mass functions
• STREGA: STRucture and Evolution of the GAlaxy. I. Survey Overview and First Results
• The STREGA survey. II. Globular Cluster Palomar 12
• Stellar-Encounter Driven Red-Giant Star Mass-Loss in Globular Clusters
• A bag of tricks: Using proper motions of Galactic stars to identify the Hercules ultra-faint dwarf galaxy members
• Optical photometry and spectroscopy of the low-luminosity, broad-lined Ic supernova iPTF15dld
• Yonsei Evolutionary Population Synthesis (YEPS) Model. III. Surface Brightness Fluctuation of Normal and Helium-enhanced Simple Stellar Populations
• Unveiling the Universe with Emerging Cosmological Probes
• IMF-induced intrinsic uncertainties on measuring galaxy distances based on the number of giant stars: the case of the ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC 1052-DF2
• FAST-SBF: an automatic procedure for the measurement of Surface Brightness Fluctuations for large sky surveys