A kinematic study of planetary nebulae in the dwarf irregular galaxy IC10

TL;DR

This study investigates the kinematics and luminosity function of planetary nebulae in galaxy IC10, revealing insights into its past interactions, star formation history, and providing a distance estimate consistent with other methods.

Contribution

It provides high-precision kinematic data of PNe in IC10 and links their properties to the galaxy's interaction history and star formation episodes.

Findings

Kinematic connection between IC10's HI envelope and PNe.

Distance modulus of 24.1±0.25 consistent with other measurements.

Constraints on past tidal interactions in the Local Group.

Abstract

We present positions, kinematics, and the planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF) for 35 planetary nebulae (PNe) in the nearest starburst galaxy IC10 extending out to 3kpc from the galaxy's centre. We take advantage of the deep imaging and spectroscopic capabilities provided by the spectrograph FOCAS on the 8.2m Subaru telescope. The PN velocities were measured through the slitless-spectroscopy technique, which allows us to explore the kinematics of IC10 with high precision. Using these velocities, we conclude that there is a kinematic connection between the HI envelope located around IC10 and the galaxy's PN population. By assuming that the PNe in the central regions and in the outskirts have similar ages, our results put strong observational constraints on the past tidal interactions in the Local Group. This is so because by dating the PN central stars, we, therefore, infer the epoch of a major episode of star formation likely linked to the first encounter of the HI extended envelope with the galaxy. Our deep [OIII] images also allow us to use the PNLF to estimate a distance modulus of 24.1+/-0.25, which is in agreement with recent results in the literature based on other techniques.