Related papers: Cepheids as distance indicators and stellar tracer…
Classical and Type II Cepheids are used to reinvestigate specific properties of the Galaxy. A new Type II reddening-free Cepheid distance parameterization is formulated from LMC Cepheids (OGLE), with uncertainties typically no larger than…
This study aims to increase awareness concerning the pernicious effects of photometric contamination (crowding/blending), since it can propagate an undesirable systematic offset into the cosmic distance scale. The latest Galactic Cepheid…
Optical interferometry is the only technique giving access to milli-arcsecond (mas) resolution at infrared wavelengths. For Cepheids, this is a powerful and unique tool to detect the orbiting companions and the circumstellar envelopes…
We present recent results concerning distance determinations based on the two most popular primary distance indicators, namely classical Cepheids and RR Lyrae. We discuss the problems affecting the Cepheid distance scale, and in particular…
Distance measurements beyond geometrical and semi-geometrical methods, rely mainly on standard candles. As the name suggests, these objects have known luminosities by virtue of their intrinsic proprieties and play a major role in our…
We briefly review the evolutionary status of the classical Cepheid variables, their structure, and the properties of the linear modes. Then we discuss the current status of the nonlinear hydrodynamical modelling, including modern adaptive…
We report on the detection of Cepheids and the first distance measurement to the spiral galaxy NGC 1326-A, a member of the Fornax cluster of galaxies. We have employed data obtained with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on board the…
We present the first application of mid-infrared Period-Luminosity relations to the determination of a Cepheid distance beyond the Magellanic Clouds. Using archival IRAC imaging data on NGC 6822 from Spitzer we were able to measure…
The Milky Way's neutral hydrogen (HI) disk is warped and flared. However, a dearth of accurate HI-based distances has thus far prevented the development of an accurate Galactic disk model. Moreover, the extent to which our Galaxy's stellar…
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…
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy, with physical properties inferred from various tracers informed by the extrapolation of structures seen in other galaxies. However, the distances of these tracers are measured indirectly and are…
The VISTA near-infrared $YJK_\mathrm{s}$ survey of the Magellanic Clouds System (VMC, PI M.-R. L. Cioni) is collecting deep $K_\mathrm{s}$-band time-series photometry of the pulsating variable stars hosted in the system formed by the two…
Period-luminosity relations (PLRs) of type II Cepheids (T2Cs) in the Small Magellanic Cloud are derived based on OGLE-III, IRSF/SIRIUS and other data, and these are compared with results for the Large Magellanic Cloud and Galactic globular…
(abridged) In this study, we constructed spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for a sample of 142 LMC and 77 SMC fundamental-mode classical Cepheids (CCs) using photometric data from the literature. When possible, the data were taken to be…
Classical Cepheid and RR Lyrae variables are radially pulsating stars that trace young and old-age stellar populations, respectively. These classical pulsating stars are the most sensitive probes for the precision stellar astrophysics and…
Metallicity gradients refer to the sloped radial profile of metallicities of gas and stars and are commonly seen in disk galaxies. A well-defined metallicity gradient of the Galactic disk is observed particularly well with classical…
We present the detection of Cepheids in the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1313, using the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on the Hubble Space Telescpoe. Twenty B (F450W) and V (F555W) epochs of observations spanning over three weeks were…
Milky Way Cepheid variables with accurate {\it Hubble Space Telescope} photometry have been established as standards for primary calibration of the cosmic distance ladder to achieve a percent-level determination of the Hubble constant…
The Galactic calibration of the period-luminosity (PL) relation for classical Cepheids is examined using trigonometric, open cluster, and pulsation parallaxes, which help establish independent versions of the relationship. The calibration…
Pulsation period of Cepheids should change as stars evolve through the instability strip. Rates of these changes found by other authors based on the decades-long O-C diagrams show rather good agreement with theoretical predictions. We have…