A distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud that is precise to one per cent
Abstract
In the era of precision cosmology, it is essential to empirically determine the Hubble constant with an accuracy of one per cent or better. At present, the uncertainty on this constant is dominated by the uncertainty in the calibration of the Cepheid period - luminosity relationship (also known as Leavitt Law). The Large Magellanic Cloud has traditionally served as the best galaxy with which to calibrate Cepheid period-luminosity relations, and as a result has become the best anchor point for the cosmic distance scale. Eclipsing binary systems composed of late-type stars offer the most precise and accurate way to measure the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud. Currently the limit of the precision attainable with this technique is about two per cent, and is set by the precision of the existing calibrations of the surface brightness - colour relation. Here we report the calibration of the surface brightness-colour relation with a precision of 0.8 per cent. We use this calibration to determine the geometrical distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud that is precise to 1 per cent based on 20 eclipsing binary systems. The final distane is 49.59 +/- 0.09 (statistical) +/- 0.54 (systematic) kiloparsecs.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1903.08096,
title = {A distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud that is precise to one per cent},
author = {G. Pietrzynski and D. Graczyk and A. Gallenne and W. Gieren and I. B. Thompson and B. Pilecki and P. Karczmarek and M. Gorski and K. Suchomska and M. Taormina and B. Zgirski and P. Wielgorski and Z. Kolaczkowski and P. Konorski and S. Villanova and N. Nardetto and P. Kervella and F. Bresolin and R. P. Kudritzki and J. Storm and R. Smolec and W. Narloch},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.08096},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
Published in Nature 567, 200 (2019)