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The Distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud from the Eclipsing Binary HV2274

E. F. Guinan·E. L. Fitzpatrick·L. E. DeWarf·F. P. Maloney·P. A. Maurone·I. Ribas·A. Gimenez·J. D. Pritchard·D. H. Bradstreet
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Abstract

The distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is crucial for the calibration of the Cosmic Distance Scale. We derive a distance to the LMC based on an analysis of ground-based photometry and HST-based spectroscopy and spectrophotometry of the LMC eclipsing binary system HV2274. Analysis of the optical light curve and HST/GHRS radial velocity curve provides the masses and radii of the binary components. Analysis of the HST/FOS UV/optical spectrophotometry provides the temperatures of the component stars and the interstellar extinction of the system. When combined, these data yield a distance to the binary system. After correcting for the location of HV2274 with respect to the center of the LMC, we find d(LMC) = 45.7 +/- 1.6 kpc or DM(LMC) = 18.30 +/- 0.07 mag. This result, which is immune to the metallicity-induced zero point uncertainties that have plagued other techniques, lends strong support to the ``short'' LMC distance scale as derived from a number of independent methods.

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E. F. Guinan, E. L. Fitzpatrick, L. E. DeWarf, F. P. Maloney, P. A. Maurone, I. Ribas, A. Gimenez, J. D. Pritchard, D. H. Bradstreet. 1998-10-21. The Distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud from the Eclipsing Binary HV2274. https://doi.org/10.1086/311760

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