Related papers: A new look at the primary distance indicators
We introduce the discrete Fr\'echet gap and its variants as an alternative measure of similarity between polygonal curves. We believe that for some applications the new measure (and its variants) may better reflect our intuitive notion of…
We discuss time-series analyses of classical Cepheid and RR Lyrae variables in the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds at multiple wavelengths. We adopt the Fourier decomposition method to quantify the structural changes in the light curves of…
We present mean horizontal branch absolute magnitudes and iron abundances for a sample of 39 globular clusters. These quantities were calculated in an unprecedented homogeneous fashion based on Fourier decomposition of ligt curves of RR…
Interstellar extinction is a major obstacle in determining accurate stellar parameters from photometry near the Galactic disk. It is especially true for globular clusters at low galactic latitudes, which suffer from significant amounts of,…
An analysis of the Ultra Long Period Cepheids (ULPs) properties could significantly contribute to understanding the Hubble constant tension, e.g. the current discrepancy between determinations based on local distance indicators and those…
In this note we explore how standard statistical distances are equivalent for discrete log-concave distributions. Distances include total variation distance, Wasserstein distance, and $f$-divergences.
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…
The VLTI is the ideal instrument for measuring the distances of nearby Cepheids with the Baade-Wesselink method, allowing an accurate recalibration of the Cepheid Period-Luminosity relation. The high accuracy required by such measurement,…
The Period - metallicity - K band luminosity (PLK) relation for RR Lyrae stars in 15 Galactic globular clusters and in the LMC globular cluster Reticulum has been derived. It is based on accurate near infrared (K) photometry combined with…
The Procrustes distance is used to quantify the similarity or dissimilarity of (3-dimensional) shapes, and extensively used in biological morphometrics. Typically each (normalized) shape is represented by N landmark points, chosen to be…
The mass of a Cepheid is a fundamental parameter for studying the pulsation and evolution of intermediate-mass stars. But determining this variable has been a long-standing problem for decades. Detecting the companions (by spectroscopy or…
A common way to quantify the ,,distance'' between measures is via their discrepancy, also known as maximum mean discrepancy (MMD). Discrepancies are related to Sinkhorn divergences $S_\varepsilon$ with appropriate cost functions as…
Messier 15 (NGC 7078) is an old and metal-poor post core-collapse globular cluster which hosts a rich population of variable stars. We report new optical ($gi$) and near-infrared (NIR, $JK_s$) multi-epoch observations for 129 RR Lyrae, 4…
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…
By adopting the same approach outlined in De Santis & Cassisi (1999), we evaluate the absolute bolometric magnitude of the Zero Age Horizontal Branch (ZAHB) at the level of the RR Lyrae variable instability strip in selected galactic…
The technique of line depth ratios (LDR) is one of the methods to determine the effective temperature of a star. They are crucial in the spectroscopic studies of variable stars like Cepheids since no simultaneous photometry is usually…
The Cepheid Period-Luminosity relation is unquestionably one of the most powerful tools at our disposal for determining the extragalactic distance scale. While significant progress has been made in the past few years towards its…
This study investigates a powerful model, targeted to subjective assessments, based on pairwise comparisons. It provides a proof that a distance-based inconsistency reduction transforms an inconsistent pairwise comparisons (PC) matrix into…
We present new empirical infrared Period-Luminosity-Metallicity (PLZ) and Period-Wesenheit-Metallicity (PWZ) relations for RR Lyrae based on the latest Gaia EDR3 parallaxes. The relations are provided in the WISE $W1$ and $W2$ bands, as…
The present status of our knowledge of the distances to the Magellanic Clouds is evaluated from a post-Hipparcos perspective. After a brief summary of the effects of structure, reddening, age and metallicity, the primary distance indicators…