Numerical Color-Magnitude Diagram Analysis of SDSS Data and Application to the New Milky Way satellites

Understand

We have tested the application to Sloan Digital Sky Survey data of the software package MATCH, which fits color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) to estimate stellar population parameters and distances.

• These tests on a set of six globular clusters show that these techniques recover their known properties.
• New ways of using the CMD-fitting software enable us to deal with an extended distribution of stars along the line-of-sight, to constrain the overall properties of sparsely populated objects, and to detect the presence of stellar overdensities in wide-area surveys.
• We then also apply MATCH to CMDs for twelve recently discovered Milky Way satellites to derive in a uniform fashion their distances, ages and metallicities.