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Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances for MASSIVE and Type Ia Supernova Host Galaxies*

Jensen, Joseph B.; Blakeslee, John P.; Ma, Chung-Pei; Milne, Peter A.; Brown, Peter J.; Cantiello, Michele; Garnavich, Peter M.; Greene, Jenny E.; Lucey, John R.; Phan, Anh; Tully, R. Brent; Wood, Charlotte M.

Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances for MASSIVE and Type Ia Supernova Host Galaxies* Thumbnail


Authors

Joseph B. Jensen

John P. Blakeslee

Chung-Pei Ma

Peter A. Milne

Peter J. Brown

Michele Cantiello

Peter M. Garnavich

Jenny E. Greene

Anh Phan

R. Brent Tully

Charlotte M. Wood



Abstract

We measured high-quality surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) distances for a sample of 63 massive early-type galaxies using the WFC3/IR camera on the Hubble Space Telescope. The median uncertainty on the SBF distance measurements is 0.085 mag, or 3.9% in distance. Achieving this precision at distances of 50–100 Mpc required significant improvements to the SBF calibration and data analysis procedures for WFC3/IR data. Forty-two of the galaxies are from the MASSIVE Galaxy Survey, a complete sample of massive galaxies within ∼100 Mpc; the SBF distances for these will be used to improve the estimates of the stellar and central supermassive black hole masses in these galaxies. Twenty-four of the galaxies are Type Ia supernova hosts, useful for calibrating SN Ia distances for early-type galaxies and exploring possible systematic trends in the peak luminosities. Our results demonstrate that the SBF method is a powerful and versatile technique for measuring distances to galaxies with evolved stellar populations out to 100 Mpc and constraining the local value of the Hubble constant.

Citation

Jensen, J. B., Blakeslee, J. P., Ma, C., Milne, P. A., Brown, P. J., Cantiello, M., …Wood, C. M. (2021). Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances for MASSIVE and Type Ia Supernova Host Galaxies*. Astrophysical Journal Supplement, 255(2), Article 21. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ac01e7

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 14, 2021
Online Publication Date Jul 27, 2021
Publication Date 2021-08
Deposit Date Nov 9, 2021
Publicly Available Date Nov 9, 2021
Journal The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
Print ISSN 0067-0049
Electronic ISSN 1538-4365
Publisher American Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 255
Issue 2
Article Number 21
DOI https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ac01e7

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.





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