Related papers: Distance Scale Zero-Points from Galactic RR Lyrae …

We present new luminosity-metallicity (LZ; MV-[Fe/H] and MG-[Fe/H]) relations and, for the first time, empirical, Gaia three-band (G,GBP,GRP) period-Wesenheit-metallicity (PWZ) relations of RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) derived using a hierarchical…

We use data on variable stars from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE III) survey to determine the three-dimensional structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). Deriving individual distances to RR Lyrae stars and Cepheids…

Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars are important pulsating variable stars in distance scale work because they serve as standard candles. Cepheids follow well-defined period-luminosity (PL) relations defined for bands extending from optical to…

Context. The Gaia satellite will measure highly accurate absolute parallaxes of hundreds of millions of stars by comparing the parallactic displacements in the two fields of view of the optical instrument. The requirements on the stability…

In this paper we investigate whether a misestimate of proper motions could have been a source of substantial systematic errors in the statistical parallax determination of the absolute magnitude of RR Lyrae stars. In an earlier paper, we…

We characterize the absolute magnitudes and colors of RR Lyrae stars in the globular cluster M5 in the ugriz filter system of the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). We provide empirical Period-Luminosity (P-L) relationships in all 5 bands based on…

A catalog of Cepheid variables is used to probe the kinematics of the Galactic disk. Radial velocities are measured for eight distant Cepheids toward l = 300; these new Cepheids provide a particularly good constraint on the distance to the…

A search for variable stars with ultra-low amplitudes (ULA), in the millimag range, has been made in the combined MACHO and OGLE data bases in the broad vicinity of the Cepheid instability strip in the HR diagram. A total of 25 singly…

Ultralow amplitude (ULA) and strange mode Cepheids are thought to be pulsating variable stars that are near to or are at the edges of the classical instability strip. Until now, a few dozen such variable star candidates have been found both…

We briefly review our photometric and spectroscopic study of RR Lyrae variable stars in the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), that allowed us to reconcile the so-called "short" and "long" distance moduli of the LMC on the value…

We study the variable star content of the globular cluster M53 to compute the physical parameters of the constituting stars and the distance of the cluster. Covering two adjacent seasons in 2007 and 2008, new photometric data are gathered…

We present V-band CCD photometry of 65 RR Lyr variables from the globular cluster M5. We have estimated the basic physical parameters for 16 RRc stars and 26 RRab stars using a Fourier decomposition of the light curves of the variables. The…

We present a comparison of Gaia Data Release 1 (DR1) parallaxes with photometric parallaxes for a sample of 212 Galactic Cepheids at a median distance of 2~kpc, and explore their implications on the distance scale and the local value of the…

We report the discovery of one RR Lyrae star in the ultra--faint satellite galaxy Hydra II based on time series photometry in the g, r and i bands obtained with the Dark Energy Camera at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, Chile. The RR…

Type II Cepheids (T2Ceps), alongside RR Lyrae stars, serve as important distance indicators for old population II stars due to their period-luminosity (PL) relations. However, studies of these relations in the Sloan photometric system are…

We present a CCD survey of variable stars in the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy. This survey, which has the largest areal coverage since the original variable star survey by Baade & Swope, includes photometry for 270 RR Lyrae stars, 9…

Gaia measures the five astrometric parameters for stars in the Milky Way, but only four of them (positions and proper motion, but not parallax) are well measured beyond a few kpc from the Sun. Modern spectroscopic surveys such as APOGEE…

The pulsational method to estimate the absolute magnitudes of RR Lyrae stars is updated with new data on field-star metallicities by Layden, a new calibration of the (B-V)_0-temperature correlation from recent atmospheric models by Bell and…

We present a search for X-ray counterparts to RR Lyrae and Cepheid variables using data from the first eROSITA all-sky survey. We identify seven RR Lyrae and eight Cepheid variables with positional matches to X-ray sources. While most…

We present absolute trigonometric parallaxes and relative proper motions for three members of the Pleiades star cluster, obtained with HST's Fine Guidance Sensor 1r, a white-light interferometer. We estimate spectral types and luminosity…