Distances and metallicities for 17 Local Group galaxies

By A. McConnachie, M. Irwin, A. Ferguson, R. Ibata, G. Lewis, Nial R. Tanvir. 2004

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We have obtained Johnson V and Gunn i photometry for a large number of Local Group galaxies using the Isaac Newton Telescope Wide Field Camera (INT WFC). The majority of these galaxies are members of the M31 subgroup and the observations are deep enough to study the top few magnitudes of the red giant branch in each system. We previously measured the location of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) for Andromeda I, Andromeda II and M33 to within systematic uncertainties of typically <0.05 mag. As the TRGB acts as a standard candle in old, metal-poor stellar populations, we were able to derive distances to each of these galaxies. Here we derive TRGB distances to the giant spiral galaxy M31 and 13 additional dwarf galaxies ‐ NGC 205, 185, 147, Pegasus, WLM, LGS3, Cetus, Aquarius, And III, V, VI, VII and the newly discovered dwarf spheroidal And IX. The observations for each of the dwarf galaxies were intentionally taken in photometric conditions. In addition to the distances, we also self-consistently derive the median metallicity of each system from the colour of their red giant branches. This allows us to take into account the small metallicity variation of the absolute I magnitude of the TRGB. The homogeneous nature of our data and the identical analysis applied to each of the 17 Local Group galaxies ensures that these estimates form a reliable set of distance and metallicity determinations that are ideal for comparative studies of Local Group galaxy properties. Ke yw ords: galaxies: general ‐ Local Group ‐ galaxies: stellar content.

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Citations in the corpus

THE LUMINOSITY PROFILE AND STRUCTURAL PARAMETERS OF THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY (2011, methodology): “Throughout this paper, we adopt a distance DM31 = 785 ± 25 kpc (McConnachie et al. 2005).”
The Haunted Halos of Andromeda and Triangulum: A Panorama of Galaxy Formation in Action (2007, background): “Throughout this work, we assume a distance of 785 kpc to M31 (McConnachie et al. 2005).”
The spatial distribution of the Milky Way and Andromeda satellite galaxies (2006, methodology): “McConnachie et al. (2005) showed that the satellite distribution is significantly offset towards the direction of the Milky Way (also visible in Fig.”
The Masses of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies (2010, methodology): “The distances of the M31 satellites are determined by the tip of the red giant branch method and have errors of ±30 kpc (see, e.g. McConnachie et al. 2005).”
On the Accretion Origin of a Vast Extended Stellar Disk around the Andromeda Galaxy (2005, background): “Located at a distance of 785 ± 25 kpc ((m − M)0 = 24.47 ± 0.07; McConnachie et al. 2005), Andromeda is the closest giant spiral galaxy to our own, and the only other giant galaxy in the Local Group.”
Nuclear star clusters (2009, background): “5.7 Properties of the M 31 nuclear star cluster Besides the Milky Way NSC, the nucleus of M 31 also deserves special attention because it is one of the nearest extragalactic NSCs (distance d=785 pc; McConnachie et al. 2005), and in fact was the first NSC to be discovered, as described in Section 2.”
The Spitzer Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud: S3MC Imaging and Photometry in the Mid- and Far-Infrared Wave Bands (2006, background): “The foreground plume has been seen in other studies of the stellar populations of Local Group dwarf galaxies (e.g., McConnachie et al. 2005).”
KINEMATICS OF THE STELLAR HALO AND THE MASS DISTRIBUTION OF THE MILKY WAY USING BLUE HORIZONTAL BRANCH STARS (2012, background): “Given that the distance between these two galaxies is ∼ 780 kpc (Ribas et al. 2005; McConnachie et al. 2005; Karachentsev & Kashibadze 2006), which is more than the double of the sum of their virial radii, we believe the tidal effect of M31 on overall mass estimate of the Galaxy, if any, should be…”
The Cold Dark Matter Halos of Local Group Dwarf Spheroidals (2007, methodology): “Table 1 lists the Galactic coordinates of each dwarf (l and b), as well as its heliocentric distance, D. Distances are taken from McConnachie et al (2004, 2005) where available, otherwise from the compilation by Ma- 3 teo (1998).”
THE M31 VELOCITY VECTOR. II. RADIAL ORBIT TOWARD THE MILKY WAY AND IMPLIED LOCAL GROUP MASS (2012, background): “Its distance D = 755 ± 23 kpc (McConnachie et al. 2005) places Cetus at Dbary ≈ 600 kpc from the LG barycenter.”
Accurate masses for dispersion-supported galaxies (2009, unknown): “…s) de Jong et al. (2008), t) Okamoto et al. (2008), u) Zucker et al. (2006a), v) Willman et al. (2005a), w) Derived from Prugniel & Heraudeau (1998), x) McConnachie et al. (2005), y) Simien & Prugniel (2002), z) Quoted from NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database, aa) Simien & Prugniel (2000), bb)…”
The Local Group on FIRE: dwarf galaxy populations across a suite of hydrodynamic simulations (2018, background): “For a comparison, the MW and M31 are separated by 787 kpc (McConnachie et al. 2005) and are approaching one another with vrad = −109 km s−1 and vtan = 17 ± 17 km s−1 (van der Marel et al. 2012, though see Salomon et al. 2016 and Carlesi et al. 2016).”
One Law to Rule Them All: The Radial Acceleration Relation of Galaxies (2016, unknown): “…et al. (2008), 43: Zucker et al. (2006), 44: Willman et al. (2006), 45: Willman et al. (2011), 46: Conn et al. (2012), 47: Geha et al. (2010), 48: McConnachie et al. (2005), 20 21 49: Geha et al. (2006), 50: McConnachie & Irwin (2006), 51: Tollerud et al. (2012), 52: Ho et al. (2012), 53:…”
THE PANCHROMATIC HUBBLE ANDROMEDA TREASURY. X. ULTRAVIOLET TO INFRARED PHOTOMETRY OF 117 MILLION EQUIDISTANT STARS (2014, result): “However, we note that this magnitude for the TRGB, which appears consistently across our survey, is consistent with the distance modulus we assume for M31 (24.47; McConnachie et al. 2005) and the typical M31 foreground extinction of AV = 0.17 (Schlafly & Finkbeiner 2011).”
Dwarf galaxy planes: the discovery of symmetric structures in the Local Group (2013, methodology): “One of the first large catalogues of distances to Local Group dwarf galaxies, measured with the tip of the red giant branch method, was provided by McConnachie et al. (2005).”
A WIDE-FIELD HIGH-RESOLUTION H i MOSAIC OF MESSIER 31. I. OPAQUE ATOMIC GAS AND STAR FORMATION RATE DENSITY (2009, background): “We assume a distance to M31 of 785 kpc (McConnachie et al. 2005) throughout.”
ELVIS: Exploring the Local Volume in Simulations (2013, unknown): “…al. 2013; Fardal et al. 2013; Piffl et al. 2013) • Total mass: 2× 1012 ≤Mv,1 +Mv,2 ≤ 5× 1012M (Li & White 2008; van der Marel et al. 2012) • Separation: 0.6 ≤ ∆R ≤ 1 Mpc (McConnachie et al. 2005, and references therein) • Radial velocity: Vrad ≤ 0 km/s (van der Marel et al. 2012) • Isolation: No…”
A wide-field H I mosaic of Messier 31 - II. The disk warp, rotation, and the dark matter halo (2009, methodology): “We assume a distance to M 31 of 785 kpc throughout, as derived by McConnachie et al. (2005) (D = 785 ± 25 kpc).”
THE LARGE-SCALE STRUCTURE OF THE HALO OF THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY. I. GLOBAL STELLAR DENSITY, MORPHOLOGY AND METALLICITY PROPERTIES (2013, background): “To overcome this problem, we further assumed that all the halo stars have the same Heliocentric distance as M31 (taken to be 785 kpc, McConnachie et al. 2005).”