The Araucaria Project. The Distance of the Large Magellanic Cloud from Near-Infrared Photometry of RR Lyrae Variables

Abstract

We have obtained deep infrared $J$ and $K$ band observations of five fields located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) bar with the ESO New Technology Telescope equipped with the SOFI infrared camera. In our fields, 65 RR Lyrae stars catalogued by the OGLE collaboration were identified. Using different theoretical and empirical calibrations of the period-luminosity-metallicity relation, we find consistent LMC distance moduli values. Since the observed fields are situated very close to the center of the LMC, the correction for the tilt of the LMC bar with respect to the line of sight is negligible. Our adopted best true distance modulus to the LMC of $18.58\pm 0.03$ (statistical) $\pm$ 0.11 (systematic) mag agrees very well with most independent determinations to this galaxy.

arXiv comment30 pages, including 5 figures and 8 tables. AJ submitted and accepted

References in corpus (28)

• Final Results from the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project to Measure the Hubble Constant
• Correcting for the Effects of Interstellar Extinction
• Color Transformations for the 2MASS Second Incremental Data Release
• New Understanding of Large Magellanic Cloud Structure, Dynamics and Orbit from Carbon Star Kinematics
• Astrometry with Hubble Space Telescope: A Parallax of the Fundamental Distance Calibrator delta Cephei
• JHK Standard Stars for Large Telescopes: the UKIRT Fundamental and Extended Lists
• The RR Lyrae Period-Luminosity Relation. I. Theoretical Calibration
• A new calibration of Galactic Cepheid Period-Luminosity relations from B to K bands, and a comparison to LMC PL relations
• A pulsational approach to near infrared and visual magnitudes of RR Lyrae stars
• WIYN Open Cluster Study. X. The K-Band Magnitude of the Red Clump as a Distance Indicator
• A Problem with the Clustering of Recent Measures of the Distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Direct Distances to Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud: Evidence for a Universal Slope of the Period-Luminosity Relation up to Solar Abundance
• Metal abundances of RR Lyrae stars in the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• A new extragalactic distance determination method using the flux-weighted gravity of late B and early A supergiants
• The RR Lyrae Period - K Luminosity relation for Globular Clusters: an observational approach
• Deep HST Imaging of IC 1613. I. Variable Stars and Distance
• Theoretical insights into the RR Lyrae K-band Period-Luminosity relation
• K-Band Red Clump Distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud
• A pulsational distance to Omega Centauri based on Near-Infrared Period-Luminosity relations of RR Lyrae stars
• The distance to the LMC cluster Reticulum from the K-band Period-Luminosity-Metallicity relation of RR Lyrae stars
• RR Lyrae variables in Galactic globular clusters: IV. Synthetic HB and RR Lyrae predictions
• Properties of RR Lyrae stars in the Inner Regions of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The ARAUCARIA project: Deep near-infrared survey of nearby galaxies. I. The distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud from K-band photometry of red clump stars
• Photometric standard stars in the BVI system in a wide field centered on the spiral galaxy NGC 300
• The Araucaria Project. Near-Infrared Photometry of Cepheid Variables in the Sculptor Galaxy NGC 55
• Distances to Local Group Galaxies
• RR Lyrae Distance Scale: Theory and Observations
• Current Uncertainties in the Use of Cepheids as Distance Indicators

Cited by in corpus (38)

• The VMC Survey - I. Strategy and First Data
• Calibrating the Cepheid Period-Luminosity relation from the infrared surface brightness technique I. The p-factor, the Milky Way relations, and a universal K-band relation
• RR-Lyrae-type pulsations from a 0.26-solar-mass star in a binary system
• Submillimeter to centimeter excess emission from the Magellanic Clouds. II. On the nature of the excess
• RR Lyrae variables: visual and infrared luminosities, intrinsic colours, and kinematics
• Three dimensional maps of the Magellanic Clouds using RR Lyrae Stars and Cepheids II. The Small Magellanic Cloud
• A new LMC K-band distance from precision measurements of nearby red clump stars
• The VMC Survey. V. First results for Classical Cepheids
• The Large Magellanic Cloud and the Distance Scale
• New near-infrared period-luminosity-metallicity relations for RR Lyrae stars and the outlook for Gaia
• The Araucaria Project. The Distance to the Small Magellanic Cloud from Near-Infrared Photometry of RR Lyrae Variables
• Three dimensional maps of the Magellanic Clouds using RR~Lyrae stars and Cepheids - I. The Large Magellanic Cloud
• The Araucaria Project. Infrared TRGB distances to the Carina and Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxies
• Period-luminosity relations of type II Cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds
• Relative distances of Omega Centauri and 47 Tucanae
• The VMC Survey - X. Cepheids, RR Lyrae stars and binaries as probes of the Magellanic System's structure
• Spitzer Analysis of HII Region Complexes in the Magellanic Clouds: Determining a Suitable Monochromatic Obscured Star Formation Indicator
• The Araucaria Project. The Distance to the Sculptor Galaxy NGC 247 from Near-Infrared Photometry of Cepheid Variables
• The VMC Survey -- XLII. Near-infrared period-luminosity relations for RR Lyrae stars and the structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Infrared Spectroscopy of Symbiotic Stars. VII. Binary Orbit and Long Secondary Period Variability of CH Cygni
• Improving the surface brightness-color relation for early-type stars using optical interferometry
• The araucaria project. An accurate distance to the late-type double-lined eclipsing binary ogle smc113.3 4007 in the small magellanic cloud
• The Araucaria Project. Infrared Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances to Five Dwarf Galaxies in the Local Group
• The Araucaria Project: The distance to the Carina Dwarf Galaxy from infrared photometry of RR Lyrae stars
• The Araucaria Project: The distance to the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy from near-infrared photometry of RR Lyrae stars
• The Carina Project. VI. The helium burning variable stars
• Preliminary results for RR Lyrae stars and Classical Cepheids from the Vista Magellanic Cloud (VMC) Survey
• The Araucaria Project. Population effects on the V and I band magnitudes of red clump stars
• The Araucaria Project. On the Tip of the Red Giant Branch distance determination to the Magellanic Clouds
• New Near-Infrared Period-Luminosity-Metallicity Relations for Galactic RR Lyrae Stars Based on Gaia EDR3 Parallaxes
• On the Metallicity Dependence of Classical Cepheid Light Amplitudes
• In search of RR Lyrae type stars in eclipsing binary systems. OGLE052218.07-692827.4: an optical blend
• Identifying Contaminated K-band Globular Cluster RR Lyrae Photometry
• Dust Emission from Evolved and Unevolved HII Regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The Infrared Surface Brightness technique applied to RR Lyrae stars from the solar neighborhood
• The Araucaria Project: Deep near-infrared photometric maps of Local and Sculptor Group galaxies. I. Carina, Fornax, Sculptor
• Pulsating variable stars in the Magellanic Clouds
• Pulsating variables from the OGLE and Araucaria projects