AN ACCURATE NEW METHOD OF CALCULATING ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDES AND K-CORRECTIONS APPLIED TO THE SLOAN FILTER SET

We describe an accurate new method for determining absolute magnitudes, and hence also K-corrections, that is simpler than most previous methods, being based on a quadratic function of just one suitably chosen observed color. The method relies on the extensive and accurate new set of 129 empirical galaxy template spectral energy distributions from Brown et al. A key advantage of our method is that we can reliably estimate random errors in computed absolute magnitudes due to galaxy diversity, photometric error and redshift error. We derive K-corrections for the five Sloan Digital Sky Survey filters and provide parameter tables for use by the astronomical community. Using the New York Value-Added Galaxy Catalog, we compare our K-corrections with those from kcorrect. Our K-corrections produce absolute magnitudes that are generally in good agreement with kcorrect. Absolute griz magnitudes differ by less than 0.02 mag and those in the u band by similar to 0.04 mag. The evolution of rest-frame colors as a function of redshift is better behaved using our method, with relatively few galaxies being assigned anomalously red colors and a tight red sequence being observed across the whole 0.0 < z < 0.5 redshift range.