Measuring distances to low-luminosity galaxies using surface brightness fluctuations

Understand

We present an in-depth study of surface brightness fluctuations (SBFs) in low-luminosity stellar systems.

• Using the MIST models, we compute theoretical predictions for absolute SBF magnitudes in the LSST, HST ACS/WFC, and proposed Roman Space Telescope filter systems.
• We compare our calculations to observed SBF-color relations of systems that span a wide range of age and metallicity.
• Consistent with previous studies, we find that single-age population models show excellent agreement with observations of low-mass galaxies with $0.5 \lesssim g - i \lesssim 0.9$.