I present a three-dimensional map of interstellar dust reddening, covering three-quarters of the sky out to a distance of several kiloparsecs, based on Pan-STARRS 1 and 2MASS photometry. The map reveals a wealth of detailed structure, from filaments to large cloud complexes. The map has a hybrid angular resolution, with most of the map at an angular resolution of 3.4′ to 13.7′ , and a maximum distance resolution of ∼25%. The three-dimensional distribution of dust is determined in a fully probabilistic framework, yielding the uncertainty in the reddening distribution along each line of sight, as well as stellar distances, reddenings and classifications for 800 million stars detected by Pan-STARRS 1. The method developed here compares observed stellar photometry with empirical stellar templates, incorporating prior knowledge about the structure of the Galaxy.
I validate the per-star reddening estimates by comparison with reddening estimates for stars with both SDSS photometry and SEGUE spectral classifications, finding per-star agreement to within ∼0.15 mag out to a stellar E(B−V) of 1 mag. I demonstrate the consistency of the resulting reddening estimates with those of two-dimensional emission-based maps of dust reddening. In particular, I find agreement with the Planck τ353 GHz-based reddening map to within 0.05 mag in E(B−V) to a depth of 0.5 mag, and explore systematics at reddenings less than E(B−V) ≈ 0.08 mag. I compare the 3D map developed here to two existing three-dimensional dust maps, by Marshall et al. (2006) and Lallement et al. (2013), exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the different 3D mapping methods. The map presented here has better angular resolution than both 3D maps compared, and it has better distance resolution than Marshall et al. (2006) within ∼3 kpc, but shows radial “finger-of-God” features not contained in Lallement et al. (2013).
The map can be queried or downloaded at http://argonaut.skymaps.info. I expect the three-dimensional reddening map presented here to find a wide range of uses, among them correcting for reddening and extinction for objects embedded in the plane of the Galaxy, studies of Galactic structure, calibration of future emission-based dust maps and determining distances to objects of known reddening. The method we present is not limited to the passbands of the Pan-STARRS 1 and 2MASS surveys, but may be extended to incorporate photometry from other optical and near-infrared surveys, such as WISE, Spitzer GLIMPSE, UKIDSS, SDSS (where available), and in the future, LSST and Gaia. The method can also be naturally extended to stellar kinematic data, such as that soon to be released by Gaia. / Astronomy
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:harvard.edu/oai:dash.harvard.edu:1/33493261 |
| Date | 25 July 2017 |
| Creators | Green, Gregory Maurice |
| Contributors | Goodman, Alyssa, Finkbeiner, Douglas |
| Publisher | Harvard University |
| Source Sets | Harvard University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | open |
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