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David Burstein

Publications and source records attributed to David Burstein.

39 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Deep Wide-Field Spectrophotometry of the Open Cluster M67

We present nine color CCD intermediate-band spectrophotometry of a two square degree field centered on the old open cluster M67, from 3890$\rm Å$ to nearly 1$μ$. These observations are taken as a part of the BATC (Beijing-Arizona-Taipei-Connecticut) Color Survey of the Sky, for both scientific and calibration reasons. With these data we show that the BATC survey can reach its goal of obtaining spectrophotometry to a zero point accuracy of 0.01 mag, and down to V = 21 with 0.3 mag random error. We fit the color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) with Worthey's theoretical models. The net result is the excellent fit of the 4.0 Gyr, [Fe/H] = $-0.10$ model to our data, including a good fit to the main sequence (MS) turn-off. Our data are consistent with a toy model with 50\% of the stars in M67 being binaries and a random distribution of binary mass-ratios, although other models with different mass-ratio distributions cannot be ruled out. The spatial distribution and mass function (MF) of stars in M67 show marked effects of dynamical evolution and evaporation of stars from the cluster. Blue stragglers and binary stars are the most condensed within the cluster, with degree of condensation depending on mass.We find M67 to have an elongated shape, oriented at an angle of $15^{\circ}$ relative to the galactic plane. Within its tidal radius, the observed MF of M67 between 1.2 $\rm M_\odot$ and $\rm 0.8 M_\odot$ has a Salpeter slope $\rm η= -1.93 \pm 0.66$. For stars of mass below 0.8 $\rm M_\odot$, $\rm η\sim 0$. It is plausible that the leveling-off of the MF at lower masses is a result of evaporation of lower mass stars in this mass range at a rate of one every $\sim 10^7$ years. If so, it is plausible that the IMF of M67 has the canonical field value of $\rm η= -2.0$.

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The Peculiar Motions of Elliptical Galaxies in Two Distant Regions - I. Cluster and Galaxy Selection

The EFAR project is a study of 736 candidate elliptical galaxies in 84 clusters lying in two regions towards Hercules-Corona Borealis and Perseus-Pisces-Cetus at distances cz = 6000-15000 km/s. In this paper (the first of a series) we present an introduction to the EFAR project and describe in detail the selection of the clusters and galaxies in our sample. Fundamental data for the galaxies and clusters are given, including accurate new positions for each galaxy and redshifts for each cluster. The galaxy selection functions are determined using diameters measured from Schmidt sky survey images for 2185 galaxies in the cluster fields. Future papers in this series will present the spectroscopic and photometric observations of this sample, investigate the properties of the fundamental plane for ellipticals, and determine the large-scale peculiar velocity fields in these two regions of the universe.

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Homogeneous Velocity-Distance Data for Peculiar Velocity Analysis. I. Calibration of Cluster Samples

We have combined five Tully-Fisher (TF) redshift-distance samples for peculiar velocity analysis: the cluster data of Han, Mould and coworkers (1991-93, HM) and Willick (1991, W91CL), and the field data of Aaronson et al. (1992), Willick (1991), Courteau & Faber (1992), and Mathewson et al. (1992), totaling over 3000 spiral galaxies. We treat the cluster data in this paper, which is the first of a series; in Paper II we treat the field TF samples. These data are to be combined with elliptical data (e.g., Faber et al. 1989) to form the MARK III CATALOG OF GALAXY PECULIAR VELOCITIES, which we will present in Paper III. The catalog will be used as input for POTENT reconstruction of velocity and density fields, described in later papers, as well as for alternative velocity analyses. Our main goal in Papers I & II is to place the TF data onto a self-consistent system by (i) applying a uniform set of corrections to the raw observables, (ii) determining the TF slopes and scatters separately for each sample, and (iii) adjusting the TF zeropoints to ensure mutually consistent distances. The global zeropoint is set by the HM sample, chosen because of its depth and uniformity on the sky and its substantial overlap with each of the other samples. In this paper, we calibrate the ``forward'' and ``inverse'' TF relations for HM and W91CL. We study the selection criteria for these samples and correct for the resultant statistical biases. The bias corrections are validated by comparing forward and inverse cluster distances. We find that many sample clusters are better modeled as ``expanding'' than relaxed, which significantly affects the TF calibrations. Proper corrections for internal extinction are derived self-consistently from the data.

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