Calibrating The Cosmic Distance Scale: An Accurate Distance to the LMC Using Eclipsing Binaries

Details Calibrating The Cosmic Distance Scale: An Accurate Distance to the LMC Using Eclipsing Binaries Calibrating The Cosmic Distance Scale: An Accurate Distance to the LMC Using Eclipsing Binaries

Aug 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001noao.prop..124g&link_type=abstract

NOAO Proposal ID #2001B-0124

Computer Science

Scientific paper

The distance to the LMC is crucial to calibrating the cosmic distance scale but remains controversial and uncertain despite the efforts of many investigators. Recently we have shown that the analysis of eclipsing binary (EB) systems has the potential to resolve this controversy. Guinan et al. (1998, ApJ, 509, L21), Fitzpatrick et al. (2001, ApJ, in press) and Maloney et al. (2001, AAS Meeting) analyzed ground-based and HST observations of HV 2274, HV 982, and EROS 1044 and determined distance moduli of (V-M_v)_circ=18.30+/-0.07 mag, 18.31+/-0.10 mag, and 18.24+/-0.09 mag, respectively. A preliminary analysis of HV 5936, from observations secured at CTIO in January and December 2000, yields (V-M_v)_circ=18.21+/-0.11 mag. While it has long been recognized that EBs provide fundamental determinations of masses and radii, the results obtained by us so far show that they also serve as accurate standard candles. We request additional Blanco 4- m echelle observations to complete the radial velocity curves of 5 EBs in the LMC and 2 EBs in the SMC. This is our last opportunity before this spectrograph is decommissioned. When combined with existing light curves and existing HST spectrophotometry, the analysis should reduce the uncertainty of the LMC distance to better than 2-3%.

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