Current Uncertainties in the Use of Cepheids as Distance Indicators

Abstract

The methods of calibrating the luminosities of galactic Cepheids and determining Cepheid reddenings are considered in some detail. Together with work on NGC4258 this suggests that the calibration presented is valid to about 0.1mag (s.e.) at least for Cepheids with near-solar abundances. Metallicity effects are considered, partly through the use of non-Cepheid moduli of the LMC. To reduce the uncertainty substantially below 0.1mag will require extensive work on metallicity effects. Non-linearities in the period-luminosity and period-colour relations will also need to be considered as will the need to distinguish unambiguously between fundamental and overtone pulsators.

26 pages, no figs, to appear in "Stellar Candles for the Extragalactic Distance Scale" Lecture Notes in Physics (Springer) ed. D. Alloin and W. Gieren

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• The Araucaria Project. The Distance to the Small Magellanic Cloud from Near-Infrared Photometry of RR Lyrae Variables
• The Araucaria Project. The Distance of the Large Magellanic Cloud from Near-Infrared Photometry of RR Lyrae Variables
• Carbon-Rich Mira Variables: Kinematics and Absolute Magnitudes
• The Linearity of the Wesenheit function for the Large Magellanic Cloud Cepheids
• On the Application of Wesenheit Function in Deriving Distance to Galactic Cepheids
• The Araucaria Project. An improved distance to the Sculptor spiral galaxy NGC 300 from its Cepheid variables
• The metallicity dependence of the Cepheid PL-relation
• Period-luminosity relations for Galactic Cepheid variables with independent distance measurements
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