Infrared Survey of Pulsating Giant Stars in the Spiral Galaxy M33: Dust Production, Star Formation History, and Galactic Structure

Atefeh Javadi, Jacco Th. van Loon, Mohammad Taghi Mirtorabi

Published 2011-01-27Version 1

We introduce a near-IR monitoring campaign of the Local Group spiral galaxy M33, carried out with the UK IR Telescope (UKIRT). The pulsating giant stars are identified and their distributions are used to derive the star formation rate as a function of age. We here present the star formation history for the central square kiloparsec. These stars are also important dust factories; we measure their dust production rates from a combination of our data with Spitzer Space Telescope mid-IR photometry.