THE ARAUCARIA PROJECT: THE DISTANCE TO THE SMALL MAGELLANIC CLOUD FROM NEAR-INFRARED PHOTOMETRY OF RR LYRAE VARIABLES

Journal Article · Tue Dec 15 04:00:00 EST 2009 · Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/138/6/1661; COUNTRY OF INPUT: INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA)· OSTI ID:21301519

Szewczyk, Olaf; Pietrzynski, Grzegorz; Gieren, Wolfgang ^[1]; Ciechanowska, Anna ^[2]; Bresolin, Fabio; Kudritzki, Rolf-Peter ^[3]

---

1. Universidad de Concepcion, Departamento de Astronomia, Casilla 160-C, Concepcion (Chile)
2. Warsaw University Observatory, Al. Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478, Warsaw (Poland)
3. Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822 (United States)

We have obtained deep infrared J- and K-band observations of nine 4.9 x 4.9 arcmin fields in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) with the ESO New Technology Telescope equipped with the SOFI infrared camera. In these fields, 34 RR Lyrae stars cataloged by the OGLE collaboration were identified. Using different theoretical and empirical calibrations of the infrared period-luminosity-metallicity relation, we find consistent SMC distance moduli, and find a best true distance modulus to the SMC of 18.97 {+-} 0.03 (statistical) {+-}0.12 (systematic) mag, which agrees well with most independent distance determinations to this galaxy, and puts the SMC 0.39 mag more distant than the Large Magellanic Cloud for which our group has recently derived, from the same technique, a distance of 18.58 mag.

• OSTI ID: 21301519
• Journal Information: Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Journal Name: Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online) Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 138; ISSN 1538-3881
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
CALIBRATION
CAMERAS
DISTANCE
LUMINOSITY
MAGELLANIC CLOUDS
PHOTOMETRY
RED SHIFT
STARS
TELESCOPES