TY - JOUR
T1 - A "short" distance to the large magellanic cloud with the Hipparcos calibrated red clump stars
AU - Stanek, K. Z.
AU - Zaritsky, D.
AU - Harris, J.
N1 - Funding Information:
K. Z. S. was supported by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Fellowship. D. Z. acknowledges financial support for the Magellanic Cloud Photometric Survey and related science from a NASA LTSA grant (NAG-5-3501), an NSF grant (AST-9619567), and a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship.
PY - 1998
Y1 - 1998
N2 - Following an approach developed by Paczyński & Stanek, we derive a distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) by comparing red clump stars from the Hipparcos catalog with the red clump stars observed in two fields in the LMC that were selected from the ongoing photometric survey of the Magellanic Clouds to lie in low-extinction regions. The use of red clump stars allows a single step determination of the distance modulus to the LMC, μ0.LMC = 18.065 ± 0.031 ± 0.09 mag (statistical plus systematic error), and the corresponding distance, RLMC = 41.02 ± 0.59 ± 1.74 kpc. This measurement is in excellent agreement with the recent determination by Udalski et al., also based on the red clump stars, but is ∼0.4 mag smaller than the generally accepted value of μ0.LMC = 18.50 ± 0.15 mag. We discuss possible reasons for this discrepancy and how it can be resolved.
AB - Following an approach developed by Paczyński & Stanek, we derive a distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) by comparing red clump stars from the Hipparcos catalog with the red clump stars observed in two fields in the LMC that were selected from the ongoing photometric survey of the Magellanic Clouds to lie in low-extinction regions. The use of red clump stars allows a single step determination of the distance modulus to the LMC, μ0.LMC = 18.065 ± 0.031 ± 0.09 mag (statistical plus systematic error), and the corresponding distance, RLMC = 41.02 ± 0.59 ± 1.74 kpc. This measurement is in excellent agreement with the recent determination by Udalski et al., also based on the red clump stars, but is ∼0.4 mag smaller than the generally accepted value of μ0.LMC = 18.50 ± 0.15 mag. We discuss possible reasons for this discrepancy and how it can be resolved.
KW - Galaxies: distances and redshifts
KW - Galaxies: individual (Large Magellanic Cloud) solar neighborhood
KW - Stars: horizontal-branch
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U2 - 10.1086/311420
DO - 10.1086/311420
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:22044454478
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 500
SP - L141-L144
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 2 PART II
ER -