Related papers: Has Blending Compromised Cepheid-Based Determinati…
The recent analysis of low-redshift supernovae (SN) has increased the apparent tension between the value of $H_0$ estimated from low and high redshift observations such as the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. At the same time…
In the early nineties several teams started large scale systematic surveys of the Magellanic Clouds and the Galactic Bulge to search for microlensing effects. As a by product, these groups have created enormous time-series databases of…
We present nonlinear theoretical results concerning the predicted pulsation behaviour of stellar models suitable for the sample of Cepheids belonging to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) star cluster NGC 1866. The blue and red edges of the…
Revised Hipparcos parallaxes for classical Cepheids are analysed together with 10 HST-based parallaxes (Benedict et al.). In a reddening-free V,I relation we find that the coefficient of logP is the same within the uncertainties in our…
Extragalactic astronomy relies on the accurate estimation of source photometry corrected for Milky Way dust extinction. This has motivated the creation of a number of "Galactic" dust maps. We investigate whether these maps are contaminated…
Fourier decomposition is a well established technique used in stellar pulsation. However the quality of reconstructed light curves using this method is reduced when the observed data have uneven phase coverage. We use simulated annealing…
A correlation between (1) the difference between the Tully-Fisher calculated distance and Cepheid calculated distance for a target galaxy and (2) the magnitude and distance of galaxies close to the target galaxy is described. The result is…
There is strong evidence that the period-luminosity (PL) relation for the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) Cepheids shows a break at a period around 10 days. Since the LMC PL relation is extensively used in distance scale studies, the…
Weak gravitational lensing is a powerful probe for constraining cosmological parameters, but its success relies on accurate shear measurements. In this paper, we use image simulations to investigate how a joint analysis of high-resolution…
The extragalactic distance scale builds directly on the Cepheid Period-Luminosity (PL) relation as delineated by the sample of Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). However, the LMC is a dwarf irregular galaxy, quite different from…
Measurements of rates of period change of Classical Cepheids probe stellar physics and evolution. Additionally, better understanding of Cepheid structure and evolution provides greater insight into their use as standard candles and tools…
We update and extend the results of Shanks (1997, MNRAS, 290, L77) by making a direct test of Tully-Fisher distance estimates to thirteen spiral galaxies with HST Cepheid distances and to ten spiral galaxies with Type Ia supernova (SNIa)…
This is an investigation of the period-luminosity relation of classical Cepheids in samples of different metallicity. It is based on 481 Cepheids in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds from the blue and red filter CCD observations (most…
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…
We have conducted an extensive wide-field imaging survey for Cepheid variables in the Local Group irregular galaxy WLM. From data obtained on 101 nights, we have discovered 60 Cepheids which include 14 of the 15 Cepheid variables previously…
Recent large-scale infrared surveys have been revealing stellar populations in the inner Galaxy seen through strong interstellar extinction in the disk. In particular, classical Cepheids with their period-luminosity and period-age relations…
We focus on empirically measure the p-factor of a homogeneous sample of 29 LMC and 10 SMC Cepheids for which an accurate average LMC/SMC distance were estimated from eclipsing binary systems. We used the SPIPS algorithm, which is an…
We present revised and improved mid-infrared Period-Luminosity (PL) relations for Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) Cepheids based on double-epoch data of 70 Cepheids observed by Spitzer at 3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8.0um. The observed scatter at all…
Evolutionary tracks for 2-8M$_\odot$ models, covering a [Fe/H]=$-$1.0 ($Z=0.0014$) to [Fe/H]=+0.2 ($Z=0.02$) metallicity range are computed with Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics, MESA, to investigate evolutionary and…
The calibration of the Type Ia supernova distances using HST observations of Cepheid variables is discussed. A new maximum likelihood method of calibration is applied to derive the PL relation for a composite sample of Cepheids in the LMC…