Monitoring pulsating giant stars in M33: star formation history and chemical enrichment

Atefeh Javadi, Jacco van Loon

Published 2017-07-15Version 1

We have conducted a near-infrared monitoring campaign at the UK InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT), of the Local Group spiral galaxy M 33 (Triangulum). A new method has been developed by us to use pulsating giant stars to reconstruct the star formation history of galaxies over cosmological time as well as using them to map the dust production across their host galaxies. In first Instance the central square kiloparsec of M33 was monitored and long period variable stars (LPVs) were identified. We give evidence of two epochs of a star formation rate enhanced by a factor of a few. 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. Then the monitoring survey was expanded to cover a much larger part of M33 including spiral arms. Here we present our methodology and describe results for the central square kiloparsec of M33 (Javadi et al. 2011 a,b,c, 2013) and disc of M33 (Javadi et al. 2015, 2016, 2017, and in preparation).