A new LMC K-band distance from precision measurements of nearby red clump stars

TL;DR

This paper uses high-precision near-infrared observations of nearby red clump stars to refine the distance measurement to the Large Magellanic Cloud, suggesting minimal metallicity correction for Cepheid-based distances.

Contribution

It provides a new, precise LMC distance estimate from red clump stars using JHK photometry, improving the calibration of cosmic distance scales.

Findings

LMC distance modulus in K-band: 18.47±0.02

LMC distance modulus in H-band: 18.49±0.06

Metallicity correction to Cepheid PL relation is small

Abstract

High-precision (sigma < 0.01) new JHK observations of 226 of the brightest and nearest red clump stars in the solar neighbourhood are used to determine distance moduli for the LMC. The resulting K- and H-band values of 18.47\pm0.02 and 18.49\pm0.06 imply that any correction to the K-band Cepheid PL relation due to metallicity differences between Cepheids in the LMC and in the solar neighborhood must be quite small.