J-PLUS: photometric calibration of large-area multi-filter surveys with stellar and white dwarf loci

Abstract

We present the photometric calibration of the 12 optical passbands observed by the Javalambre Photometric Local Universe Survey (J-PLUS). Methods. The proposed calibration method has four steps: (i) definition of a high-quality set of calibration stars using Gaia information and available 3D dust maps; (ii) anchoring of the J-PLUS gri passbands to the Pan-STARRS photometric solution, accounting for the variation in the calibration with the position of the sources on the CCD; (iii) homogenization of the photometry in the other nine J-PLUS filters using the dust de-reddened instrumental stellar locus in (chi - r) versus (g-i) colours, where chi is the filter to calibrate. The zero point variation along the CCD in these filters was estimated with the distance to the stellar locus. Finally, (iv) the absolute colour calibration was obtained with the white dwarf locus. We performed a joint Bayesian modelling of 11 J-PLUS colour-colour diagrams using the theoretical white dwarf locus as reference. This provides the needed o ffsets to transform instrumental magnitudes to calibrated magnitudes outside the atmosphere. Results. The uncertainty of the J-PLUS photometric calibration, estimated from duplicated objects observed in adjacent pointings and accounting for the absolute colour and flux calibration errors, are similar to 19 mmag in u, J0378, and J0395; similar to 11 mmag in J0410 and J0430; and similar to 8 mmag in g, J0515, r, J0660, i, J0861, and z. Conclusions. We present an optimized calibration method for the large-area multi-filter J-PLUS project, reaching 1-2% accuracy within an area of 1022 square degrees without the need for long observing calibration campaigns or constant atmospheric monitoring. The proposed method will be adapted for the photometric calibration of J-PAS, that will observe several thousand square degrees with 56 narrow optical filters.© ESO 2019 ; We dedicate this paper to the memory of our six IAC colleagues and friends who met with a fatal accident in Piedra de los Cochinos, Tenerife, in February 2007, with special thanks to Maurizio Panniello, whose teachings of python were so important for this paper. We thank the anonymous referee for useful comments and suggestions. Based on observations made with the JAST/T80 telescope at the Observatorio Astrofisico de Javalambre (OAJ), in Teruel, owned, managed, and operated by the Centro de Estudios de Fisica del Cosmos de Aragon. We acknowledge the OAJ Data Processing and Archiving Unit (UPAD) for reducing and calibrating the OAJ data used in this work. Funding for the J-PLUS Project has been provided by the Governments of Spain and Aragon through the Fondo de Inversiones de Teruel; the Aragon Government through the Reseach Groups E96, E103, and E16_17R; the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) with grants PGC2018-097585-B-C21 and PGC2018-097585-B-C22; the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under AYA2015-66211-C2-1-P, AYA2015-66211-C2-2, AYA2012-30789, and ICTS-2009-14; and European FEDER funding (FCDD10-4E-867, FCDD13-4E-2685). This work was also supported by the MINECO through grant ESP2016-80079-C2-1-R and RTI2018-095076-B-C21 (MINECO/FEDER, UE) and MDM-2014-0369 of ICCUB (Unidad de Excelencia "Maria de Maeztu"). F. J. E. acknowledges financial support from the Tec2Space-CM project (P2018/NMT-4291). Funding for the SDSS and SDSS-II has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, the Max Planck Society, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The SDSS Web Site is www.sdss.org.The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are the American Museum of Natural History, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, University of Basel, University of Cambridge, CaseWestern Reserve University, University of Chicago, Drexel University, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Korean Scientist Group, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST), Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, the Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys (PS1) and the PS1 public science archive have been made possible through contributions by the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS Project O ffice, the Max-Planck Society and its participating institutes, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, The Johns Hopkins University, Durham University, the University of Edinburgh, the Queen's University Belfast, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated, the National Central University of Taiwan, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX08AR22G issued through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, the National Science Foundation Grant No. AST-1238877, the University of Maryland, Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium).Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. This research made use of Astropy, a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration 2013), and Matplotlib, a 2D graphics package used for Python for publication-quality image generation across user interfaces and operating systems (Hunter 2007). ; Peer reviewed