Cepheid Variables in the Maser-Host Galaxy NGC 4258

Abstract

We present results of a ground-based survey for Cepheid variables in NGC 4258. This galaxy plays a key role in the Extragalactic Distance Scale due to its very precise and accurate distance determination via VLBI observations of water masers. We imaged two fields within this galaxy using the Gemini North telescope and GMOS, obtaining 16 epochs of data in the SDSS gri bands over 4 years. We carried out PSF photometry and detected 94 Cepheids with periods between 7 and 127 days, as well as an additional 215 variables which may be Cepheids or Population II pulsators. We used the Cepheid sample to test the absolute calibration of theoretical gri Period-Luminosity relations and found good agreement with the maser distance to this galaxy. The expected data products from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) should enable Cepheid searches out to at least 10 Mpc.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal

References in corpus (35)

• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• Planck 2013 results. XVI. Cosmological parameters
• The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Correcting for the Effects of Interstellar Extinction
• The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Data Release 10 and 11 galaxy samples
• A 3% Solution: Determination of the Hubble Constant with the Hubble Space Telescope and Wide Field Camera 3
• Observational Probes of Cosmic Acceleration
• An eclipsing binary distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud accurate to 2 per cent
• Cosmicflows-2: The Data
• A 4% Geometric Distance to the Galaxy NGC4258 from Orbital Motions in a Nuclear Gas Disk
• Toward a New Geometric Distance to the Active Galaxy NGC 4258. III. Final Results and the Hubble Constant
• A new Cepheid distance to the maser-host galaxy NGC 4258 and its implications for the Hubble Constant
• The Cepheid Distance to NGC 5236 (M 83) with the VLT
• The distance to the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 5128
• The First DIRECT Distance Determination to a Detached Eclipsing Binary in M33
• First Determination of the Distance and Fundamental Properties of an Eclipsing Binary in The Andromeda Galaxy
• The Discovery of Cepheids and a Distance to NGC 5128
• Neutrinos help reconcile Planck measurements with both Early and Local Universe
• The distance to the Andromeda Galaxy from eclipsing binaries
• Large Magellanic Cloud Near-Infrared Synoptic Survey. I. Cepheid variables and the calibration of the Leavitt Law
• Toward a New Distance to the Active Galaxy NGC 4258: II. Centripetal Accelerations and Investigation of Spiral Structure
• A Study of Cepheids in M81 with the Large Binocular Telescope (Efficiently Calibrated with HST)
• Toward a New Geometric Distance to the Active Galaxy NGC4258: I. VLBI Monitoring of Water Maser Emission
• Deep CFHT Photometric Survey of the Entire M33 Galaxy I: Catalogue of 36000 Variable Point Sources
• Revisiting the abundance gradient in the maser host galaxy NGC 4258
• A Panoply of Cepheid Light Curve Templates
• Properties of M31. II: A Cepheid disk sample derived from the first year of PS1 PAndromeda data
• The M31 Near-Infrared Period-Luminosity Relation and its non-linearity for $\delta$ Cep Variables with $0.5\le \log (P)\le 1.7$
• Period-colour and amplitude-colour relations in classical Cepheid variables IV: The multi-phase relations
• Calibration of photometry from the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph on Gemini North
• Re-analysis of VLT Data for M83 with Image Subtraction -- Nine-fold Increase in Number of Cepheids
• Predicted properties of Galactic and Magellanic Classical Cepheids in the SDSS filters
• V(RI)sub(c) Photometry of Cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds
• Semi-Empirical Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relations in Sloan Magnitudes
• Photometry of 40 LMC Cepheids

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB)
• Comparative performance of selected variability detection techniques in photometric time series
• An independent determination of the local Hubble constant
• Investigating Cepheid $\ell$ Carinae's Cycle-to-cycle Variations via Contemporaneous Velocimetry and Interferometry
• Optical Identification of Cepheids in 19 Host Galaxies of Type Ia Supernovae and NGC 4258 with the Hubble Space Telescope
• Measuring Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances with HST WFC3: Calibration and Advice
• Vetting Galactic Leavitt Law Calibrators using Radial Velocities: On the Variability, Binarity, and Possible Parallax Error of 19 Long-period Cepheids
• Cepheids in M31 - The PAndromeda Cepheid sample
• Absolute Calibration of Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relations in NGC 4258
• The Cepheid Distance to the Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxy NGC 4051
• Period-Luminosity Relations for Galactic classical Cepheids in the Sloan bands
• M31 PAndromeda Cepheid sample observed in four HST bands
• Impact of AGN and nuclear star formation on the ISM turbulence of galaxies: Insights from JWST/MIRI spectroscopy
• Reconstruction of Cepheid Radial Velocity Curves from the shape of the V-band Light Curves