Photoelectric magnitudes and color indices in the Vilnius seven-color system for 152 stars are used to investigate the interstellar extinction in the area of the Aries molecular cloud MBM 12, coinciding with the L1454 and L1457 dust clouds. Spectral types, absolute magnitudes, color excesses, interstellar extinctions and distances of the stars are determined. The plot of interstellar extinction A_v_ versus distance shows that the dust cloud is situated at a distance of 325pc, at 180pc from the Galactic plane, and its true diameter is about 11pc. The interstellar extinction law in the area is found to be normal, typical for the diffuse dust. Ten peculiar or unresolved binary stars and some heavily reddened stars are detected.
We present a study of the detailed distribution of extinction in a region of the Taurus dark cloud complex. Our study uses new BVR images of the region, spectral classification data for 95 stars, and IRAS Sky Survey Atlas (ISSA) 60 and 100 {mu}m images. We study the extinction of the region in four different ways, and we present the first intercomparison of all these methods, which are as follows: (1) using the color excess of background stars for which spectral types are known, (2) using the ISSA 60 and 100 {mu}m images, (3) using star counts, and (4) using an optical (V and R) version of the average color excess method used by Lada et al. We find that all four methods give generally similar results - with important exceptions. As expected, all the methods show an increase in extinction due to dense dusty regions (i.e., dark clouds and IRAS cores) and a general increase in extinction with increasing declination, due to a larger content of dust in the northern regions of the Taurus dark cloud complex. Some of the discrepancies between the methods are caused by assuming a constant dust temperature for each line of sight in the ISSA extinction maps and not correcting for unexpected changes in the background stellar population (i.e., the presence of a cluster or Galactic gradients in the stellar density and average V-R color).
We determine the extinction law through Cep OB3b, a young cluster of 3000 stars undergoing gas dispersal. The extinction is measured toward 76 background K giants identified with MMT/Hectospec spectra. Color excess ratios were determined toward each of the giants using V and R photometry from the literature, g, r, i, and z photometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and J, H, and K_s_ photometry from the Two Micron All Sky Survey. These color excess ratios were then used to construct the extinction law through the dusty material associated with Cep OB3b. The extinction law through Cep OB3b is intermediate between the R_V_=3.1 and R_V_=5 laws commonly used for the diffuse atomic interstellar medium and dense molecular clouds, respectively. The dependence of the extinction law on line-of-sight A_V_ is investigated and we find the extinction law becomes shallower for regions with A_V_>2.5 mag. We speculate that the intermediate dust law results from dust processing during the dispersal of the molecular cloud by the cluster.
The Orion Nebula and its associated young stellar cluster are located at the front-side of the optically thick OMC-1 molecular cloud. In order to disentangle the cluster members from background contamination, it is important to know the extinction provided by the OMC-1, which is poorly known, the available measurements yielding contradictory results. Our main goal is to derive a new extinction map of the OMC-1, obtaining information about the structure of the OMC-1 and the Orion Nebula Cluster. The most recent near-infrared catalog of stars is used to study the distribution of reddening across a 0.3deg^2^ area covering the Orion Nebula Cluster. On the basis of the observed (H,H-Ks) diagram, we establish a criterion for disentangling contaminants from bona-fide cluster members. For contaminant stars, interstellar reddenings are estimated by comparison with a synthetic galactic model. A statistical analysis is then performed to consistently account for local extinction, reddening and star-counts analysis. We derive the extinction map of the OMC-1 with angular resolution <5'. We also assemble a sample of candidate cluster members, for which we measure the extinction provided by the nebular environment. These extinction measurements are analyzed similarly to the contaminant sample, and an extinction map of the Orion Nebula is derived. The extinction provided by the OMC-1 is variable on spatial scales of a few arcminutes, while showing a general increase from the outskirts (A_V_~6) to the direction of the Trapezium asterism (A_V_>30). The Orion Nebula extinction map is more irregular and optically thinner, with Av of the order of a few magnitudes. Both maps are consistent with the optical morphology, in particular the Dark Bay to the north-east of the Trapezium. Both maps also show the presence of a north-south high-density ridge, which confirms the filamentary structure of the Orion molecular complex inside which star formation is still taking place.
We combine the observations with the Besancon model of the Galaxy to investigate the variations of extinction along different lines of sight towards the inner Galactic bulge as a function of distance. The full results are listed in Table 1 and Table 2. These results will be also added into the BEAM calculator webpage (http://mill.astro.puc.cl/BEAM/calculator.php). For each position we give the E(J-Ks), E(H-Ks) as well as the corresponding sigma for each distance bin starting from 1 to 10kpc.
The paper presents an extensive list of the total to selective extinction ratios R calculated from the infrared magnitudes of 597 O and B stars using the extrapolation method. The IR magnitudes of these stars were taken from the literature. The IR colour excesses are determined with the aid of "artificial standards", Wegner (1994MNRAS.270..229W). The individual and mean values of total to selective extinction ratios R differ in most cases from the average value R=3.10+/-0.05, Wegner (1993AcA....43..209W) in different OB associations. The relation between total to selective extinction ratios R determined in this paper and those calculated using the "method of variable extinction" and the Cardelli et al. (1989ApJ...345..245C) formulae is discussed. The R values presented in this paper can be used to determine individual absolute magnitudes of reddened OB stars with known trigonometric parallaxes.
O stars are excellent tracers of the intervening ISM because of their high luminosity, blue intrinsic SED, and relatively featureless spectra. We are currently conducting the Galactic O-Star Spectroscopic Survey (GOSSS), which is generating a large sample of O stars with accurate spectral types within several kpc of the Sun. We aim to obtain a global picture of the properties of dust extinction in the solar neighborhood based on optical-NIR photometry of O stars with accurate spectral types. We have processed a carefully selected photometric set with the CHORIZOS code to measure the amount [E(4405-5495)] and type [R_5495_] of extinction towards 562 O-type stellar systems. We have tested three different families of extinction laws and analyzed our results with the help of additional archival data.
We search for extragalactic sources in the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey that are hidden by the Galaxy. Herein, we describe our photometric procedure to find and characterize extragalactic objects using a combination of SExtractor and PSFEx. It was applied in two tiles of the survey: d010 and d115, without previous extragalactic IR detections, in order to obtain photometric parameters of the detected sources. The adopted criteria to define extragalactic candidates include CLASS_STAR<0.3; 1.0<R_1/2_<5.0 arcsec; 2.1<C<5; and {Phi}>0.002 and the colors: 0.5<(J-K_s_)<2.0 mag; 0.0<(J-H)<1.0 mag; 0.0<(H-K_s_)<2.0 mag and (J-H)+0.9(H-K_s_)>0.44 mag. We detected 345 and 185 extragalactic candidates in the d010 and d115 tiles, respectively. All of them were visually inspected and confirmed to be galaxies. In general, they are small and more circular objects, due to the near-IR sensitivity to select more compact objects with higher surface brightness. The procedure will be used to identify extragalactic objects in other tiles of the VVV disk, which will allow us to study the distribution of galaxies and filaments hidden by the Milky Way.
We present the reduction of the 24{mu}m data obtained during the first cosmological survey performed by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Images of a region of sky at moderately high Galactic latitude (l=88.3{deg}, b=+34.9{deg}) were obtained on 2003 December 9-11. The survey consists of a shallow observation of 2.5x2{deg}^2^ centered at 17:18 +59:30 (main survey) and a deeper observation of 1{deg}x0.5{deg} centered at 17:17 +59:45 (verification survey). Issues with the reduction of the 24{mu}m MIPS data are discussed and solutions to attenuate instrumental effects are proposed and applied to the data. Approximately 17000 sources are extracted with a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) greater than 5. The photometry of the point sources is evaluated through point-spread function (PSF) fitting using an empirical PSF derived from the data. Aperture corrections and the absolute calibration have been checked using stars in the field. Astrometric and photometric errors depend on the S/N of the source varying between 0.35"-1" and 5%-15%, respectively, for sources detected at 20-5{sigma}. The fluxes of the 123 extended sources have been estimated through aperture photometry. The extended sources cover less than 0.3% of the total area of the survey. Based on simulations, the main and verification surveys are 50% complete at 0.3 and 0.15mJy, respectively. Counterparts have been searched for in optical and radio catalogs.
Extragalactic linear polarization meas. agglomeration
Short Name:
VII/287
Date:
22 Feb 2022
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
In the framework of the Standard Model Extension (SME), we present improved constraints on anisotropic Lorentz invariance and Charge-Parity-Time (CPT) violation by searching for astrophysical signals of cosmic vacuum birefringence with broadband optical polarimetry of high redshift astronomical sources, including Active Galactic Nuclei and Gamma-Ray Burst afterglows. We generalize Kislat (Constraints on lorentz invariance violation from optical polarimetry of astrophysical objects. Symmetry, 10(11), 2018. ISSN 2073-8994. doi:10.3390/sym10110596), which studied the SME mass dimension d=4 case, to arbitrary mass dimension for both the CPT-even and CPT-odd cases. We then present constraints on all 10, 16, and 42 anisotropic birefringent SME coefficients for dimension d=4, d=5, and d=6 models respectively, using 7554 observations for odd d and 7376 observations for even d of 1278 unique sources on the sky, which, to our knowledge comprises the most complete catalog of optical polarization from extragalactic sources in the literature to date. Compared to the smaller sample of 44 and 45 broadband optical polarimetry observations analyzed in Kislat (Constraints on lorentz invariance violation from optical polarimetry of astrophysical objects. Symmetry, 10(11), 2018. ISSN 2073-8994. doi:10.3390/sym10110596) and Kislat et al. (2017 Phys. Rev. D, 95(8):083013, doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.95.083013), our dimension d=4 and d=5 average constraints are more sensitive by factors of 35 and 10, corresponding to a reduction in allowed SME parameter space volume for these studies of 15 and 16 orders of magnitude, respectively. Constraints from individual lines of sight can be significantly stronger using spectropolarimetry, due to the steep energy dependence of birefringence effects at increasing mass dimension. Nevertheless, due to the increased number of observations and lines of sight in our catalog, our average d=4 and d=5 broadband constraints are within factors of 2 and 12 of previous constraints using spectropolarimetry from Kislat (Constraints on lorentz invariance violation from optical polarimetry of astrophysical objects. Symmetry, 10(11), 2018. ISSN 2073-8994. doi:10.3390/sym10110596) and Kislat et al. (2017, Phys. Rev. D 95(8):083013, doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.95.083013), respectively, using an independent data set and an improved analysis method. By contrast, our anisotropic constraints on all 42 birefringent SME coefficients for d=6 are the first to be presented in the literature.
