Reddening and Distance of the Local Group Starburst Galaxy IC 10

Minsun Kim; Eunhyeuk Kim; Narae Hwang; Myung Gyoon Lee; Myungshin Im; Hiroshi Karoji; Junichi Noumaru; and Ichi Tanaka

doi:10.1088/0004-637X/703/1/816

paper

Reddening and Distance of the Local Group Starburst Galaxy IC 10

arXiv:0907.4844 · doi:10.1088/0004-637X/703/1/816

Abstract

We estimate the reddening and distance of the nearest starburst galaxy IC 10 using deep near infrared $J H K_{S}$ photometry obtained with the Multi-Object InfraRed Camera and Spectrograph (MOIRCS) on the Subaru telescope. We estimate the foreground reddening toward IC 10 using $U B V$ photometry of IC 10 from the Local Group Survey, obtaining $E (B - V) = 0.52 \pm 0.04$ mag. We derive the total reddening including the internal reddening, $E (B - V) = 0.98 \pm 0.06$ mag, using $U B V$ photometry of early-type stars in IC 10 and comparing $J H K_{S}$ photometry of red giant branch stars in IC 10 and the SMC. Using the 2MASS point source catalog of 20 Galactic globular clusters, we derive a relation between the metallicity [Fe/H] $_{C G 97}$ and the slope of the red giant branch in the $K_{S} - (J - K_{S})$ color-magnitude diagram. The mean metallicity of the red giant branch stars in IC 10 is estimated to be [Fe/H] $_{C G 97} = - 1.08 \pm 0.28$ . The magnitude of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) of IC 10 in the $K_{S}$ band is measured to be $K_{S, T R GB} = 18.28 \pm 0.01$ . Based on the TRGB method, we estimate the distance modulus of IC 10 to be $(m - M)_{0} = 24.27 \pm 0.03 (random) \pm 0.18 (systematic)$ , corresponding to the distance of $d = 715 \pm 10 \pm 60$ kpc. This confirms that IC 10 is a member of the Local Group.

35 pages, 11 figures, To appear in the Astrophysical Journal, 2009

Reddening and Distance of the Local Group Starburst Galaxy IC 10

Abstract

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