A Physically-Based Method for Scaling Cepheid Light Curves for Future Distance Determinations

Abstract

We present a technique for decomposing Cepheid light curves into their fundamental constituent parts; that is, their radius and temperature variations. We demonstrate that any given pair of optical luminosity and color curves can be used to predict the shape, amplitude and phase of a Cepheid's light variation at any other wavelength. With such predictions in hand, a single new observation at any given new wavelength can be used to normalize the properties of the predicted light curve, and in specific, derive a precise value of the time-averaged mean. We suggest that this method will be of great advantage in efficiently observing and precisely obtaining the mean properties of known Cepheids scheduled to be observed at new wavelengths, specifically in the mid-infrared where JWST will be operating.

Accepted to the ApJ; 16 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (7)

• The Araucaria Project. Near-Infrared Photometry of Cepheid Variables in the Sculptor Galaxy NGC 300
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• The MBHBM* Project -- I: Measurement of the Central Black Hole Mass in Dwarf Galaxy NGC 3504 Using Molecular Gas Kinematics
• New Near-Infrared $JH{K}_s$ light-curve templates for RR Lyrae variables
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• Calibrating the surface brightness - color relation for late-type red giants stars in the visible domain using VEGA/CHARA interferometric observations
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• Distances to Local Group Galaxies via Population II, Stellar Distance Indicators I: The Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program: Calibration of the Near-Infrared RR Lyrae Period-Luminosity Relation With HST
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