The Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relation at Mid-Infrared Wavelengths: I. First-Epoch LMC Data

Details The Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relation at Mid-Infrared Wavelengths: I. First-Epoch LMC Data The Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relation at Mid-Infrared Wavelengths: I. First-Epoch LMC Data

2008-01-15

arxiv.org/abs/0801.2275v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

19 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

Scientific paper

10.1086/586701

We present the first mid-infrared Period-Luminosity (PL) relations for Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) Cepheids. Single-epoch observations of 70 Cepheids were extracted from Spitzer IRAC observations at 3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8.0 microns, serendipitously obtained during the SAGE (Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution) imaging survey of the LMC. All four mid-infrared PL relations have nearly identical slopes over the period range 6 - 88 days, with a small scatter of only +/-0.16 mag independent of period for all four of these wavelengths. We emphasize that differential reddening is not contributing significantly to the observed scatter, given the nearly two orders of magnitude reduced sensitivity of the mid-IR to extinction compared to the optical. Future observations, filling in the light curves for these Cepheids, should noticeably reduce the residual scatter. These attributes alone suggest that mid-infrared PL relations will provide a practical means of significantly improving the accuracy of Cepheid distances to nearby galaxies.

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