The VMC survey-XIII. Type II cepheids in the large magellanic cloud

V. Ripepi*, M. I. Moretti, M. Marconi, G. Clementini, M. R.L. Cioni, R. de Grijs, J. P. Emerson, M. A.T. Groenewegen, V. D. Ivanov, T. Muraveva, A. E. Piatti, S. Subramanian

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

47 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) survey of the Magellanic Clouds System (VMC) is collecting deep Ks-band time-series photometry of the pulsating variable stars hosted in the system formed by the two Magellanic Clouds and the Bridge connecting them. In this paper, we have analysed a sample of 130 Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) Type II Cepheids (T2CEPs) found in tiles with complete or near-complete VMC observations for which identification and optical magnitudes were obtained from the OGLE III (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) survey. We present J and Ks light curves for all 130 pulsators, including 41 BL Her, 62 W Vir (12 pW Vir) and 27 RV Tau variables. We complement our near-infrared photometry with the V magnitudes from the OGLE III survey, allowing us to build a variety of period-luminosity (PL), period-luminosity-colour (PLC) and period-Wesenheit (PW) relationships, including any combination of the V, J, Ks filters and valid for BL Her and W Vir classes. These relationships were calibrated in terms of the LMC distance modulus, while an independent absolute calibration of the PL(Ks) and the PW(Ks, V) was derived on the basis of distances obtained from Hubble Space Telescope parallaxes and Baade-Wesselink technique. When applied to the LMC and to the Galactic globular clusters hosting T2CEPs, these relations seem to show that (1) the two Population II standard candles RR Lyrae and T2CEPs give results in excellent agreement with each other; (2) there is a discrepancy of ~0.1 mag between Population II standard candles and classical Cepheids when the distances are gauged in a similar way for all the quoted pulsators. However, given the uncertainties, this discrepancy is within the formal 1s uncertainties.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3034-3061
Number of pages28
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume446
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Jan 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Galaxies: distances and redshifts
  • Magellanic Clouds
  • Stars: oscillations
  • Stars: Population II
  • Stars: variables: Cepheids
  • Surveys

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