THE ARAUCARIA PROJECT. THE DISTANCE TO THE SMALL MAGELLANIC CLOUD FROM LATE-TYPE ECLIPSING BINARIES

Graczyk, D.; Pietrzynski G.; Thompson, IB; Gieren, W.; Pilecki, B.; Konorski, P; Udalski, A; Soszynski I.; Villanova, S.; Górski M.; Suchomska, K; Karczmarek, P; Kudritzki, RP; Bresolin, F; Gallenne, A.

Abstract

We present a distance determination to the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) based on an analysis of four detached, long-period, late-type eclipsing binaries discovered by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) survey. The components of the binaries show negligible intrinsic variability. A consistent set of stellar parameters was derived with low statistical and systematic uncertainty. The absolute dimensions of the stars are calculated with a precision of better than 3%. The surface brightness-infrared color relation was used to derive the distance to each binary. The four systems clump around a distance modulus of (m - M) = 18.99 with a dispersion of only 0.05 mag. Combining these results with the distance published by Graczyk et al. for the eclipsing binary OGLE SMC113.3 4007, we obtain a mean distance modulus to the SMC of 18.965 +/- 0.025 (stat.) +/- 0.048 (syst.) mag. This corresponds to a distance of 62.1 +/- 1.9 kpc, where the error includes both uncertainties. Taking into account other recent published determinations of the SMC distance we calculated the distance modulus difference between the SMC and the Large Magellanic Cloud equal to 0.458 +/- 0.068 mag. Finally, we advocate mu(SMC) = 18.95 +/- 0.07 as a new canonical value of the distance modulus to this galaxy.

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Título según WOS: THE ARAUCARIA PROJECT. THE DISTANCE TO THE SMALL MAGELLANIC CLOUD FROM LATE-TYPE ECLIPSING BINARIES
Título según SCOPUS: The araucaria project. the distance to the small magellanic cloud from late-type eclipsing binaries
Título de la Revista: ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volumen: 780
Número: 1
Editorial: IOP PUBLISHING LTD
Fecha de publicación: 2014
Idioma: English
URL: http://stacks.iop.org/0004-637X/780/i=1/a=59?key=crossref.c5448b71b240da5e1f6b0c03459841f8
DOI:

10.1088/0004-637X/780/1/59

Notas: ISI, SCOPUS