Wednesday, 22 November 2017

astronomy - What objects/states of objects with absolute magnitude do we know of?


For measuring distances the knowledge of absolute magnitude or luminosity is often crucial, especially for very big distances. Unfortunately we can't measure the diameter of far distant objects and calculate and derive absolute magnitude due to resolution limits.


That's why objects or better named states in the life cycle of specific objects, like Type Ia supernovas, are so important.


What additional objects do we know of sharing this property? Are there objects theoretically predicted to have a absolute magnitude but until now not yet discovered? Name the object and the spectral range of emitted light or particles.



Answer



The jargon for what you are looking for is "standard candles": things whose luminosities we can determine without knowing their distance. They are of particular interest to astronomers because they can be used to measure distances.


There are many such objects, but all of them should be treated with some caution. In no case is our knowledge of the luminosity perfect, and in many cases there is large intrinsic scatter. Generally, our knowledge is not of the form "all objects of type x have luminosity y", but more of the form "for objects of type x, the luminosity is correlated with parameters a, b, and c according to complicated equation foo." The physical origin of complicated equation foo is much better understood in some cases than in others, and in all cases needs to be empirically calibrated. Particularly if the physical origin of the correlation is poorly understood, we may not know if or how the calibration changes with the age of the universe. Because we see very distant objects as they were when the universe was younger, this limits our ability to use them as distance measurements to great distances.


In all cases one needs to be careful to take the redshift into account, as the part of an objects rest spectrum which, say, appears blue nearby, may appear red or even IR when the same object is more distant. (See k-correction.) In many cases, a range of wavelengths may be used (at least in the visual or IR), but the calibration may be different for different rest wavelengths. If you observe the all objects through the same filter, you will be observing different objects at different rest wavelengths.


Here are some standard candles:





  • Cepheid variable stars (see 2000ApJS..128..431F) are very bright, and their luminosity is strongly correlated with their luminosity, making them excellent standard candles.




  • RR Lyrae variable stars also follow such a relationship (2003LNP...635...85B), but are fainter.




  • Type Ia supernova are very bright, and their peak luminosity can be estimated from their change in luminosity over time.





  • The tip of the red giant branch in the HR diagram (2000ApJS..128..431F) is one bright feature of the HR diagram that can be used. Blue supergiants have also been proposed as possible standard candles (see 2003LNP...635..123K).




  • The simple surface brightness of a galaxy is useless as a standard candle: the number of stars per square arcsecond rises as the distance squared, while the luminosity of an individual star falls as the distance squared, so the surface brightness is independent of distance. However, even in a galaxy where the stars are distributed according to some smooth function (as in an elliptical galaxy like M87), the surface brightness isn't perfectly smooth, because the stars are of finite brightness: the stars are randomly distributed according to the smooth function, and by chance some places have more stars than others. The roughness of the galaxy can therefore be used to measure the luminosity weighted mean luminosity of the stars in the galaxy, and this can be used as a standard candle of sorts. This is the "surface brightness fluctuation" (SBF) method of distance measurement, introduced in 1988AJ.....96..807T.




  • Large clusters of galaxies usually have a bright giant elliptical galaxy near the center. These are called "Brightest Cluster Galaxies" (BCGs). BCGs have a fairly consistent luminosity; see 1995ApJ...440...28P.




  • Planetary nebulae can have a wide range of luminosities, but there is a well defined upper limit to how bright they can be (see 1989ApJ...339...39J and associated articles). So, if you measure the number of planetary nebulae in a galaxy as a function of luminosity, the "planetary nebula luminosity function" (PNLF), the cutoff at the bright end can be used as a standard candle.





  • The peak of the globular cluster luminosity function (GCLF) seems to be consistent across different galaxies, so the luminosity at which there are the most globular clusters in a given galaxy can be used as a standard candle. The physical reason for this consistency is not well understood. See 2006AJ....132.2333S.




  • For spiral galaxies, there is a relationship between the the rotation curve and luminosity, the "Tully-Fisher" relation (1977A&A....54..661T). See also the Faber-Jackson relation (1976ApJ...204..668F) and Fundamental plane for elliptical galaxies.




  • There may be a relationship between the radius of the broad line region of an active galactic nucleus and its luminosity. See Watson el al. (2011).





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