TY - JOUR
T1 - Using Surface Brightness Fluctuations to Study nearby Satellite Galaxy Systems
T2 - The Complete Satellite System of M101
AU - Carlsten, Scott G.
AU - Beaton, Rachael L.
AU - Greco, Johnny P.
AU - Greene, Jenny E.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/6/10
Y1 - 2019/6/10
N2 - We use surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) measurements to constrain the distance to low surface brightness (LSB) dwarfs in the vicinity of M101. Recent work has discovered many LSB candidate satellite companions of M101. However, without accurate distances, it is problematic to identify these dwarfs as physical satellites of M101. We use CFHT Legacy Survey data to measure the SBF signal for 43 candidate dwarfs. The data are deep enough that we constrain 33 of these to be unassociated background galaxies by their lack of SBF. We measure high S/N SBF signals for two of the candidate dwarfs, which are consistent with being at the distance of M101. The remaining candidates are too LSB and/or small for their distances to be constrained. Still, by comparison with Local Group dwarfs, we argue that the M101 satellite system is likely now complete down to stellar masses of ∼5 ×105 M o. We also provide a new SBF distance for the nearby dwarf UGC 8882, which suggests that it might be a physical satellite of M101; however, further study is merited. By constraining the distances to a majority of the candidates using only archival data, our work demonstrates the usefulness of SBF for nearby LSB galaxies and for studying the satellite systems of nearby massive galaxies.
AB - We use surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) measurements to constrain the distance to low surface brightness (LSB) dwarfs in the vicinity of M101. Recent work has discovered many LSB candidate satellite companions of M101. However, without accurate distances, it is problematic to identify these dwarfs as physical satellites of M101. We use CFHT Legacy Survey data to measure the SBF signal for 43 candidate dwarfs. The data are deep enough that we constrain 33 of these to be unassociated background galaxies by their lack of SBF. We measure high S/N SBF signals for two of the candidate dwarfs, which are consistent with being at the distance of M101. The remaining candidates are too LSB and/or small for their distances to be constrained. Still, by comparison with Local Group dwarfs, we argue that the M101 satellite system is likely now complete down to stellar masses of ∼5 ×105 M o. We also provide a new SBF distance for the nearby dwarf UGC 8882, which suggests that it might be a physical satellite of M101; however, further study is merited. By constraining the distances to a majority of the candidates using only archival data, our work demonstrates the usefulness of SBF for nearby LSB galaxies and for studying the satellite systems of nearby massive galaxies.
KW - galaxies: distances and redshifts
KW - galaxies: dwarf
KW - methods: observational
KW - techniques: photometric
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069526146&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85069526146&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/ab24d2
DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/ab24d2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85069526146
SN - 2041-8205
VL - 878
JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters
IS - 1
M1 - L16
ER -