Stellar Populations in the Large Magellanic Cloud from 2MASS

By S. Nikolaev, M. Weinberg. 2000

174 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a morphological analysis of the feature-rich 2MASS LMC color-magnitude diagram, identifying Galactic and LMC populations and estimating the density of LMC populations alone. We also present the projected spatial distributions of various stellar populations. The conditions that prevailed when 2MASS observed the LMC provided 10 σ limiting sensitivity for J ≲ 16.3, H ≲ 15.3, and Ks ≲ 14.7. Major populations are identified based on matching morphological features of the color-magnitude diagram with expected positions of known populations, isochrone fits, and analysis of the projected spatial distributions. 2MASS has detected a significant population of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars (≳104 sources) and obscured AGB stars (≳2 × 103 sources). The LMC populations along the first-ascent red giant branch (RGB) and AGB are quantified. Comparison of the giant luminosity functions in the bar and the outer regions of the LMC shows that both luminosity functions appear consistent with each other. The luminosity function in the central (bar) field has well-defined drop-off near Ks = 12.3 mag corresponding to the location of the RGB tip; the same feature is seen in the luminosity function of the entire LMC field. Isochrone fits for the corresponding giant branches reveal no significant differences in metallicities and ages between central and outer regions of the LMC. This may be evidence for strong dynamical evolution in the last several gigayears. In particular, the observed LMC giant branch is well fit by published tracks in the CIT/CTIO system with a distance modulus of μ = 18.5 ± 0.1, reddening EB-V = 0.15-0.20, metallicity Z = 0.004, and age 3-13 Gyr. Analysis of deep 2MASS engineering data with 6 times the standard exposure produces similar estimates.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4ebeba23d61c20989f1705941120d6dd13904c17

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. C. Conroy
2. L. Girardi
3. Dennis Zaritsky
4. Michela Mapelli
5. A. Bressan
6. P. Marigo
7. J. Harris
8. J. J. Dalcanton

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. L. Girardi
2. Dennis Zaritsky
3. J. Harris
4. R. Indebetouw
5. B. Whitney
6. M. Cioni
7. R. P. van der Marel
8. M. Barbieri

Citations in the corpus

• The global gas and dust budget of the Large Magellanic Cloud: AGB stars and supernovae, and the impact on the ISM evolution (2009, background): “Carbon-rich stars are found in the reddest of these branches (J − Ks 1.4), as is known from previous studies (Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000).”
• Constraining the thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch phase with resolved stellar populations in the Large Magellanic Cloud (2019, methodology): “…samples provided by the Deep Near Infrared Survey of the Southern Sky (DENIS; Cioni et al. 2000) and the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS; Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000; Cutri et al. 2003), to include the mid-infrared data from Spitzer surveys (Boyer et al. 2011; Gordon et al. 2011;…”
• Evolution of asymptotic giant branch stars. I. Updated synthetic TP-AGB models and their basic calibration (2007, background): “DENIS and 2MASS have provided photometry in the red and near-infrared for the complete sample of nonobscured AGB stars in the Magellanic Clouds, revealing striking features such as the “red tail” of carbon stars (Cioni et al. 1999; Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000).”
• Spitzer Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud: Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy’s Evolution (SAGE). I. Overview and Initial Results (2006, unknown): “…et al. 2003; Kim et al. 2003), the stellar components that trace the history of star formation (Zaritsky et al. 2004; Van Dyk et al. 1999; Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000; Holtzman et al. 1999; Olsen 1999; J. Harris & D. Zaritsky 2006, in preparation), and the dust (Schwering 1989; Egan et al.…”
• Magellanic Cloud Structure from Near-Infrared Surveys. I. The Viewing Angles of the Large Magellanic Cloud (2001, methodology): “Background galaxies tend to be fainter than the LMC AGB stars (Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000), so while they do contribute to the faint end of LFs such as those in Figure 3, they do not a†ect the Gaussian Ðts to the LF peak (described in ° 3.4).”
• THE ACS NEARBY GALAXY SURVEY TREASURY. IX. CONSTRAINING ASYMPTOTIC GIANT BRANCH EVOLUTION WITH OLD METAL-POOR GALAXIES (2010, result): “Unfortunately, the properties of these models are inconsistent with the most basic observations of over 10 000 C-type AGB stars in the Magellanic Clouds (see Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000; Cioni & Habing 2003) with a significant fraction being at 3100 > Teff/K > 2650 (Groenewegen et al. 2009).”
• A NEW GENERATION OF PARSEC-COLIBRI STELLAR ISOCHRONES INCLUDING THE TP-AGB PHASE (2017, background): “All these features became well-known since the release of near-infrared photometry for the Magellanic Clouds (e.g. Cioni et al. 2000; Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000).”
• Improving PARSEC models for very low mass stars (2014, background): “…of the 2MASS point sources (Cutri et al. 2003) concentrate at J−Ks ≃ 0.85, in a sort of vertical finger in near–infrared colour–magnitude diagrams (e.g. Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000); this finger is dominated by M dwarfs at magnitudes Ks & 14, except at very low galactic latitudes (Zasowski et al.…”
• THE STAR FORMATION HISTORY OF THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD (2009, background): “As noted by many for at least 20 years (cf. van den Bergh 1981; Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000), the peaks in the SFR did not occur uniformly throughout the LMC (Figure 8) and our study enables a detailed temporal and morphological study of this behavior.”
• A standard stellar library for evolutionary synthesis - III. Metallicity calibration (2001, background): “…2000; Maraston and Thomas, 2000; Barmby and Huchra, 2000; Liu et al., 2000; Lastennet et al., 2000; Lotz et al., 2000; Mollá and Garćıa-Vargas, 2000; Nikolaev and Weinberg, 2000; Kong et al., 2000; Lee et al., 2000; Marleau et al., 2000; Johnson et al., 2000; Lastennet et al., 2001; Kotilainen…”
• Evolution of asymptotic giant branch stars. II. Optical to far-infrared isochrones with improved TP- (2007, methodology): “Moreover, TP-AGB stars account for most of the brightinfrared (IR) objects in resolved galaxies, as clearly demonstrated by DENIS, 2MASS, SAGE and S3MC data for the Magellanic Clouds (Cioni et al. 1999; Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000; Blum et al. 2006; Bolatto et al. 2007).”
• Spitzer SAGE Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud. II. Evolved Stars and Infrared Color-Magnitude Diagrams (2006, methodology): “To the blue and fainter end of this feature lies the OB star locus in the LMC (region A of Nikolaev & Weinberg 2000).”
• Variable stars in the Magellanic Clouds: results from OGLE and SIRIUS (2003, background): “According to Nikolaev & Weinberg (2000), stars withJ−K > 1.4 in the LMC are primarily carbonrich AGB stars, being considered as the descendants of oxygenrich AGB stars.”