Abstract

We present a theoretical calibration of the RR Lyrae period-luminosity- color and period-color-color relations in the multiband uvby Strömgren photometric system. Our theoretical work is based on calculations of synthetic horizontal branches (HBs) for four different merallicities, fully taking into account evolutionary effects for a wide range in metallicities and HB morphologies. While our results show that "pure" period-luminosity and period-color relations do not exist in the Strömgren system, which is due to the large scatter that is brought about by evolutionary effects when the uvby bandpasses are used, they also reveal that such scatter can be almost completely taken into account by incorporating Strömgren pseudocolor [C0 = (u - v)0 - (v - b)0] terms into those equations, thus leading to tight period-luminosity-pseudocolor (PLpsC) and period-color-pseudocolor (PCpsC) relations. We provide the latter in the form of analytical fits, so that they can be applied with high precision even in the case of field stars. In view of the very small sensitivity of C0 to interstellar reddening, our PLpsC and PCpsC relations should be especially useful for the derivation of high-precision distance and reddening values. In this sense, we carry out a first application of our relations to field RR Lyrae stars, finding evidence that the stars RR Lyr, SU Dra, and SS Leo, but not SV Hya, are somewhat overluminous (by amounts ranging from ≃0.05 to 0.20 mag iny, and thus V) with respect to the average for other RR Lyrae stars of similar metallicity. © 2008. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.