The Cepheid period -- luminosity -- metallicity relation based on Gaia DR2 data

TL;DR

This study derives the period-luminosity-metallicity relation for Galactic Cepheids using Gaia DR2 data, highlighting the impact of parallax zero-point offsets on distance measurements and the current limitations in refining the cosmic distance scale.

Contribution

It provides a new calibration of the PLZ relation for Galactic Cepheids based on Gaia DR2, analyzing the effects of parallax zero-point offsets and refining the distance to the LMC.

Findings

The parallax zero-point offset is approximately -0.049 mas.

The slope of the PL relation differs from the LMC at 3 sigma.

Current Gaia DR2 data cannot improve the Cepheid-based distance scale significantly.

Abstract

We use parallax data from the Gaia second data release (GDR2), combined with parallax data based on Hipparcos and HST data, to derive the period-luminosity-metallicity (PLZ) relation for Galactic classical cepheids (CCs) in the V,K, and Wesenheit WVK bands. An initial sample of 452 CCs are extracted from the literature with spectroscopically derived iron abundances. Reddening values, pulsation periods, and mean magnitudes are taken from the literature. Based on nine CCs with a goodness-of-fit (GOF) statistic <8 and with an accurate non-Gaia parallax, a parallax zero-point offset of -0.049 +- 0.018 mas is derived. Selecting a GOF statistic <8 removes about 40\% of the sample most likely related due to binarity. Excluding first overtone and multi-mode cepheids and applying some other criteria reduces the sample to about 200 stars. The derived PL(Z) relations depend strongly on the parallax zero-point offset. The slope of the PL relation is found to be different from the relations in the LMC at the 3 sigma level. Fixing the slope to the value found in the LMC leads to a distance modulus (DM) to the LMC of order 18.7 mag, larger than the canonical distance. The canonical DM of around 18.5 mag would require a parallax zero-point offset of order $-0.1$ mas. Given the strong correlation between zero point, period and metallicity dependence of the PL relation, and the parallax zero-point offset there is no evidence for a metallicity term in the PLZ relation. The GDR2 release does not allow us to improve on the current distance scale based on CCs. The value of and the uncertainty on the parallax zero-point offset leads to uncertainties of order 0.15 mag on the distance scale. The parallax zero-point offset will need to be known at a level of 3 microas or better to have a 0.01 mag or smaller effect on the zero point of the PL relation and the DM to the LMC.