Extinction ratios in the inner Galaxy as revealed by the VVV survey

Abstract

Interstellar extinction towards the Galactic Center is large and significantly differential. Its reddening and dimming effects in red clump stars in the Galactic Bulge can be exploited to better constrain the extinction law towards the innermost Galaxy. By virtue of a deep and complete catalog of more than 30 million objets at $|l|\le 2.7°$ and $|b|\le 1.55°$ obtained from VVV survey observations, we apply the red clump method to infer the selective-to-total extinction ratios in the $Z$, $Y$, $J$, $H$ and $K_s$ broadband near-infrared filters. The measured values are smaller than previously reported, and are not constant, with mean values, e.g., $A_{K_S}/E(J-K_s)=0.428\pm 0.005\pm 0.04$ and $A_{K_S}/E(H-K_s)=1.104\pm 0.022\pm 0.2$. We also obtain a ratio $A_Z$:$A_Y$:$A_J$:$A_H$:$A_{K_S}$ of 7.74:5.38:3.30:1.88:1.0, implying extinction towards the Galactic Center to follow a distribution as a function of wavelength steeper than previously reported, consistent with a power law $A_{\lambda }\propto {\lambda }^{-2.47}$ in the near-infrared.

Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters, 10 pages, 3 Figures, 2 Tables

References in corpus (2)

• Milky Way demographics with the VVV survey. I. The 84-million star colour-magnitude diagram of the Galactic bulge
• Variable stars in the VVV globular clusters. I. 2MASS-GC02 and Terzan10

Cited by in corpus (39)

• SpeX near-infrared spectroscopic extinction curves in the Milky Way
• Transverse kinematics of the Galactic bar-bulge from VVV and Gaia
• GALACTICNUCLEUS: A high-angular-resolution JHKs imaging survey of the Galactic centre III. Evidence for wavelength dependence of the extinction curve in the near-infrared
• Distances to the Supernova Remnants in the Inner Disk
• Using classical Cepheids to study the far side of the Milky Way disk: I. Spectroscopic classification and the metallicity gradient
• APOGEE discovery of a chemically atypical star disrupted from NGC 6723 and captured by the Milky Way bulge
• Galactic extinction laws: I. A global NIR analysis with 2MASS photometry
• A new identity card for the bulge globular cluster NGC 6440 from resolved star counts
• Confirmation and physical characterization of the new bulge globular cluster Patchick 99 from the VVV and Gaia surveys
• Hunting for C-rich long-period variable stars in the Milky Way's bar-bulge using unsupervised classification of Gaia BP/RP spectra
• High-resolution extinction map in the direction of the strongly obscured bulge fossil fragment Liller 1
• The extinction law in the inner $3\times 3$ deg${}^2$ of the Milky Way and the red clump absolute magnitude in the inner bar-bulge
• New type II Cepheids from VVV data towards the Galactic center
• VVV WIN 1733$-$3349: a low extinction window to probe the far side of the Milky Way bulge
• A new low-luminosity globular cluster discovered in the Milky Way with the VVVX survey
• The VVV survey: Long-period variable stars I. Photometric catalog of ten VVV/OGLE tiles
• A Deep, High-Angular Resolution 3D Dust Map of the Southern Galactic Plane
• Blanco DECam Bulge Survey (BDBS) III: A new view of the double red clump in the Milky Way bulge through luminosity and color distribution
• GROJ1750-27: a neutron star far behind the Galactic Center switching into the propeller regime
• A new distance to the Brick, the dense molecular cloud G0.253+0.016
• An Intriguing Globular Cluster in the Galactic Bulge from the VVV Survey
• Candidate Hypervelocity Red Clump Stars in the Galactic Bulge Found Using the VVV and Gaia Surveys
• The distances to molecular clouds in the fourth Galactic quadrant
• Properties of the transient X-ray pulsar Swift J1816.7--1613 and its optical companion
• The Galactic Bulge exploration IV.: RR~Lyrae stars as traces of the Galactic bar -- 3D and 5D analysis, extinction variation
• Dust extinction map of the Galactic plane based on the VVV survey data
• VVV-WIT-01: highly obscured classical nova or protostellar collision?
• The bulge globular cluster Terzan 6 as seen from multi-conjugate adaptive optics and HST
• Unveiling VVV/WISE Mira variables on the far side of the Galactic disk: Distances, kinematics and a new extinction law
• The JWST-NIRCam View of Sagittarius C. III. The Extinction Curve
• Variable stars in the VVV globular clusters. II. NGC6441, NGC6569, NGC6626 (M28), NGC6656 (M22), 2MASS-GC02, and Terzan10
• Metallicity-dependent kinematics and orbits in the Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc
• The multi-age stellar populations of Terzan 5 as revealed by JWST
• A Near-Infrared Extinction and Reddening Map Towards the Galactic Bulge Using UKIRT
• Multi-Wavelength characterization of VVVX open clusters
• Self-consistent modelling of the Milky Way's Nuclear Stellar Disc
• Confirmation Of Two New Galactic Bulge Globular Clusters: FSR 19 and FSR 25
• Distance and extinction to the Milky Way spiral arms along the Galactic centre line of sight
• Kinematical and dynamical properties of recently discovered bulge and disc star clusters with WINERED