The Araucaria Project: The distance to the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy from near-infrared photometry of RR Lyrae stars

Abstract

We have obtained single-phase near-infrared (NIR) magnitudes in the J- and K-bands for 77 RR Lyrae (RRL) stars in the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. We have used different theoretical and empirical NIR period-luminosity-metallicity calibrations for RRL stars to derive their absolute magnitudes, and found a true, reddening-corrected distance modulus of 20.818 +/- 0.015 (statistical) +/- 0.116 (systematic) mag. This value is in excellent agreement with the results obtained within the Araucaria Project from the NIR photometry of red clump stars (20.858 +/- 0.013 mag), the tip of the red giant branch (20.84 +/- 0.04 +/- 0.14 mag), as well as with other independent distance determinations to this galaxy. The effect of metallicity and reddening is substantially reduced in the NIR domain, making this method a robust tool for accurate distance determination at the 5 percent level. This precision is expected to reach the level of 3 percent once the zero points of distance calibrations are refined thanks to the Gaia mission. NIR period-luminosity-metallicity relations of RRL stars are particularly useful for distance determinations to galaxies and globular clusters up to 300 kpc, that lack young standard candles, like Cepheids.

arXiv comment11 pages, 3 figures, 5 tables, accepted to AJ, table 4 available in machine-readable format at http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/~pkarczmarek/projects/Fornax_table4_machine-readable.txt. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1507.07713

References in corpus (46)

• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• Color Transformations for the 2MASS Second Incremental Data Release
• An eclipsing binary distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud accurate to 2 per cent
• Abundances for Globular Cluster Giants: I. Homogeneous Metallicities for 24 Clusters
• The Star Formation Histories of Local Group Dwarf Galaxies I. Hubble Space Telescope / Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 Observations
• The DART imaging and CaT survey of the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
• JHK Standard Stars for Large Telescopes: the UKIRT Fundamental and Extended Lists
• The RR Lyrae Period-Luminosity Relation. I. Theoretical Calibration
• The Araucaria Project. The distance to the Small Magellanic Cloud from late-type eclipsing binaries
• On a new theoretical framework for RR Lyrae stars I: the metallicity dependence
• A pulsational approach to near infrared and visual magnitudes of RR Lyrae stars
• Astrometry with Hubble Space Telescope: A Parallax of the Fundamental Distance Calibrator RR Lyrae
• The Araucaria Project. Near-Infrared Photometry of Cepheid Variables in the Sculptor Galaxy NGC 300
• VVV Survey Near-Infrared Photometry of Known Bulge RR Lyrae stars: the Distance to the Galactic Center and Absence of a Barred Distribution of the Metal-Poor Population
• Distance Scale Zero-Points from Galactic RR Lyrae Star Parallaxes
• Using the Ca II Triplet to Trace Abundance Variations in Individual Red Giant Branch stars in Three Nearby Galaxies
• The RR Lyrae Period - K Luminosity relation for Globular Clusters: an observational approach
• Shell Structure in the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
• The Araucaria Project. The Distance to the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy from infrared photometry of RR Lyrae stars
• RR Lyrae stars in Galactic globular clusters.III. Pulsational predictions for metal content Z=0.0001 to Z=0.006
• Globular Cluster Distances from RR Lyrae Stars
• On the distance of the globular cluster M4 (NGC 6121) using RR Lyrae stars: I. optical and near-infrared Period-Luminosity and Period-Wesenheit relations
• The Araucaria Project: the Local Group Galaxy WLM--Distance and metallicity from quantitative spectroscopy of blue Supergiants
• Theoretical insights into the RR Lyrae K-band Period-Luminosity relation
• RR Lyrae stars in Galactic globular clusters. II. A theoretical approach to variables in M3
• The Chemical Enrichment History of the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy from the Infrared Calcium Triplet
• Variable Stars in the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy
• The distance to the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
• 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
• The Araucaria Project. Infrared TRGB distances to the Carina and Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxies
• Variable stars in the Fornax dSph Galaxy. II. Pulsating stars below the horizontal branch
• 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
• The infrared JHK light curves of RR Lyr
• The Araucaria Project. A Distance Determination to the Local Group Spiral M33 from Near-Infrared Photometry of Cepheid Variables
• The Araucaria Project. The Distance of the Large Magellanic Cloud from Near-Infrared Photometry of RR Lyrae Variables
• Four and one more: The formation history and total mass of globular clusters in the Fornax dSph
• Near-infrared observations of the Fornax dwarf galaxy. I. The red giant branch
• Tracing the tidal streams of the Sagittarius dSph, and halo Milky Way features, with carbon-rich long-period variables
• Variable stars in the Fornax dSph Galaxy. I. The Globular Cluster Fornax 4
• The distance to the Fornax dwarf galaxy using red clump stars, and the discrepancy between red clump and tip of the red giant branch distances
• 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
• A new study of stellar substructures in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy
• Variable Stars in the Fornax dSph Galaxy. III. The Globular Cluster Fornax 5
• Gaia Parallax Zero Point From RR Lyrae Stars

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Limit on the LMC mass from a census of its satellites
• Old-Aged Stellar Population Distance Indicators
• High-precision distance measurements with classical pulsating stars
• The bursty star formation history of the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy revealed with the HST
• Identifying RR Lyrae Variable Stars in Six Years of the Dark Energy Survey
• Studies of RR Lyrae Variables in Binary Systems. I.: Evidence of a Trimodal Companion Mass Distribution
• Extreme r-process enhanced stars at high metallicity in Fornax
• The Araucaria Project. Multi-band calibrations of the TRGB absolute magnitude
• New Near-Infrared Period-Luminosity-Metallicity Relations for Galactic RR Lyrae Stars Based on Gaia EDR3 Parallaxes
• Distances to Local Group Galaxies via Population II, Stellar Distance Indicators. II. The Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal
• Neutron-capture elements in dwarf galaxies III: A homogenized analysis of 13 dwarf spheroidal and ultra-faint galaxies
• Humps and bumps: The effects of shocks on the optical light curves of fundamental-mode RR Lyrae stars
• 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
• RR Lyrae stars with variable mean magnitudes