Calibrating the Cosmic Meter Stick: The Distance to the LMC Using Eclipsing Binaries

Details Calibrating the Cosmic Meter Stick: The Distance to the LMC Using Eclipsing Binaries Calibrating the Cosmic Meter Stick: The Distance to the LMC Using Eclipsing Binaries

Jul 2000

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000hst..prop.8691g&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #8691

Computer Science

Hst Proposal Id #8691 Hot Stars

Scientific paper

The LMC distance is crucial for the calibration of the Cosmic Distance Scale. However, there is considerable disagreement about this fundamental measurement, with discrepancies among different methods of 10% {m-M = 18.2 - 18.7 mag}. Employing a method largely immune from zero-point uncertainties plaguing less direct methods, we recently determined an accurate distance {m-M = 18.30 +/- 0.07 mag.} to the LMC eclipsing binary {EB} HV2274. This distance was derived from ground-based light curves, HST/FOS spectrophotometry, and GHRS radial velocity data. We propose HST/STIS observations of three additional LMC EBs, carefully chosen from the large MACHO and EROS surveys, to determine more accurately the LMC distance. These detached, uncomplicated EBs, in the Bar or 30 Dor region, minimize corrections to the LMC centroid. HST/STIS low-dispersion spectrophometry {115 - 800 nm} will be used to determine T_eff and E{B-V}. STIS/G140M observations yield accurate radial velocities of these double-line systems which, when combined with the light curves and temperatures, yield the stellar radii and luminosities, and distances. These data form the core of this program to determine the LMC distance, thereby firmly establishing the length of the Cosmic Meter Stick to better than 2%.

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