A Global Physical Model for Cepheids

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive physical model for Cepheid variable stars, fitting extensive multi-band data across multiple galaxies to improve distance measurements and understand metallicity effects.

Contribution

It introduces a global physical model for Cepheids that accurately characterizes their light and velocity curves with few parameters and provides publicly available templates.

Findings

Model achieves 0.05 mag residuals in light curves

Derives a mean reddening law differing from standard assumptions

Finds metal-poor Cepheids are systematically hotter

Abstract

We perform a global fit to ~5,000 radial velocity and ~177,000 magnitude measurements in 29 photometric bands covering 0.3 to 8.0 microns distributed among 287 Galactic, LMC, and SMC Cepheids with P > 10 days. We assume that the Cepheid light curves and radial velocities are fully characterized by distance, reddening, and time-dependent radius and temperature variations. We construct phase curves of radius and temperature for periods between 10 and 100 days, which yield light curve templates for all our photometric bands and can be easily generalized to any additional band. With only 4 to 6 parameters per Cepheid, depending on the existence of velocity data and the amount of freedom in the distance, the models have typical rms light and velocity curve residuals of 0.05 mag and 3.5 km/s. The model derives the mean Cepheid spectral energy distribution and its derivative with respect to temperature, which deviate from a black body in agreement with metal-line and molecular opacity effects. We determine a mean reddening law towards the Cepheids in our sample, which is not consistent with standard assumptions in either the optical or near-IR. Based on stellar atmosphere models we predict the biases in distance, reddening, and temperature determinations due to the metallicity and we quantify the metallicity signature expected for our fit residuals. The observed residuals as a function of wavelength show clear differences between the individual galaxies, which are compatible with these predictions. In particular, we find that metal-poor Cepheids appear hotter. Finally, we provide a framework for optimally selecting filters that yield the smallest overall errors in Cepheid parameter determination, or filter combinations for suppressing or enhancing the metallicity effects on distance determinations. We make our templates publicly available.