Related papers: The RR Lyrae Distance Scale
The present determination of the absolute magnitude $M_V(RR)$ of RR Lyrae stars is twofold, relying upon Hipparcos proper motions and trigonometric parallaxes separately. First, applying the statistical parallax method to the proper…
The present status of the distance scale to Galactic globular clusters is reviewed. Six distance determination techniques which are deemed to be most reliable are discussed in depth. These different techniques are used to calibrate the…
(abridged) New photometry and spectroscopy for more than a hundred RR Lyrae stars in two fields located close to the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) are used to derive new accurate estimates of the average magnitude, the local…
Using the method of ``reduced parallaxes'' for the Halo RR Lyrae stars in the Hipparcos catalogue we derive a zero point of 0.77 $\pm$ 0.26 mag for an assumed slope of 0.18 in the $M_{\rm V}$-[Fe/H] relation. This is 0.28 magnitude brighter…
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…
The most common methods to derive the distance to globular clusters using RR Lyrae variables are reviewed, with a special attention to those that have experienced significant improvement in the past few years. From the weighted average of…
I review statistical parallax absolute magnitude determinations which employ data from the HIPPARCOS satellite for RR Lyrae and Cepheid variables, and for several other stellar classes. Five groups have studied the RR Lyrae stars, and the…
We present new statistical parallax solutions for the absolute magnitude and kinematics of RR Lyrae stars. New proper motion, radial velocity, and abundance data are used; the new data set is 50% larger, and of higher quality, than…
I explore the consequences of making the RR Lyrae and clump giant distance scales consistent in the solar neighborhood, Galactic bulge and Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). I employ two major assumptions: 1) that the absolute magnitude -…
We present a mathematical analysis of the statistical parallax method. The method yields physical insight into the maximum-likelihood determinations of the luminosity and velocity distribution and enables us to conduct a vigorous Monte…
We present a Bayesian analysis of the distances to 15,040 Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) RR Lyrae stars using $V$- and $I$-band light curves from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment, in combination with new $z$-band observations from…
We sing the praises of the central limit theorem. Having previously removed all other possible causes of significant systematic error in the statistical parallax determination of RR Lyrae absolute magnitudes, we investigate systematic…
We present the radial velocities, metallicities and the K-band magnitudes of 74 RR Lyrae stars in the inner regions of the LMC. The intermediate resolution spectra and infrared images were obtained with FORS1 at the ESO VLT and with the…
We present deep VI photometry of stars in the globular cluster M5 (NGC 5904) based on images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The resulting color-magnitude diagram reaches below V ~ 27 mag, revealing the upper 2-3 magnitudes of the…
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 have used new parallax measurements, obtained by the Hipparcos satellite, of fifteen nearby, metal-poor stars to re-define the subdwarf main-sequence. All of these stars have parallaxes determined to an accuracy of at least 12 %.…
We use theoretical models to establish a tight relationship for the absolute magnitudes of RR Lyrae stars as a function of their periods and Stroemgren pseudo-color c_0 = (u-v)_0 - (v-b)_0. Applying this to RR Lyr, and comparing the result…
We determine the period-magnitude relations of RR Lyrae stars in 13 photometric bandpasses from 0.4 to 12 {\mu}m using timeseries observations of 134 stars. The Bayesian formalism, extended from our previous work to include the effects of…
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is widely considered a corner-stone of the astronomical distance scale, however a difference of 0.2-0.3 mag exists in its distance as predicted by the "short" and "long" distance scales. Distances to the LMC…
We report the mean metallicity and absolute magnitude of RR Lyrae stars in a sample of 37 globular clusters, calculated via the Fourier decomposition of their light curves and ad hoc semiempirical calibrations, in an unprecedented…