THE MILKY WAY TOMOGRAPHY WITH SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY. IV. DISSECTING DUST

We use Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry of 73 million stars to simultaneously constrain best-fit main-sequence stellar spectral energy distribution (SED) and amount of dust extinction along the line of sight toward each star. Using a subsample of 23 million stars with Two Micron All Sky Su...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2012-10, Vol.757 (2), p.1-35
Main Authors: Berry, Michael, Ivezic, Zeljko, SESAR, BRANIMIR, Juric, Mario, Schlafly, Edward F, Bellovary, Jillian, Finkbeiner, Douglas, VRBANEC, DIJANA, Beers, Timothy C, Brooks, Keira J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ABSORPTION
ASTRONOMY
ASTROPHYSICS
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
COLOR
CORRELATIONS
COSMIC DUST
DENSITY
Dust
ENERGY SPECTRA
Extinction
Line of sight
MAIN SEQUENCE STARS
MILKY WAY
PHOTOMETRY
RED GIANT STARS
Sky surveys (astronomy)
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
Spectral energy distribution
Stars
TOMOGRAPHY
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Summary:We use Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry of 73 million stars to simultaneously constrain best-fit main-sequence stellar spectral energy distribution (SED) and amount of dust extinction along the line of sight toward each star. Using a subsample of 23 million stars with Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) photometry, whose addition enables more robust results, we show that SDSS photometry alone is sufficient to break degeneracies between intrinsic stellar color and dust amount when the shape of extinction curve is fixed. Our results are in good agreement with the extinction normalization given by the Schlegel et al. (SFD) dust maps at high northern Galactic latitudes, but indicate that the SFD extinction map appears to be consistently overestimated by about 20% in the southern sky, in agreement with recent study by Schlafly et al. We make these best-fit parameters, as well as all the input SDSS and 2MASS data, publicly available in a user-friendly format.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/757/2/166