We present observational details and first results of a near-infrared (JHKs) synoptic survey of the central region of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using the CPAPIR camera at the CTIO 1.5 m ...telescope. We covered 18 square degrees to a depth of K sub(s)~16.5 mag and obtained an average of 16 epochs in each band at any given location. Our catalog contains more than 3.5 x 10 super(6) sources, including 1417 Cepheid variables previously studied at optical wavelengths by the OGLE survey. Our sample of fundamental-mode pulsators represents a nine-fold increase in the number of these variables with time-resolved, multi-band near-infrared photometry. We combine our large Cepheid sample and a recent precise determination of the distance to the LMC to derive a robust absolute calibration of the near-infrared Leavitt Law for fundamental-mode and first-overtone Cepheids with 10x better constraints on the slopes relative to previous work. We also obtain calibrations for the tip of the red giant branch and the red clump based on our ensemble photometry which are in good agreement with previous determinations.
ABSTRACT
The period of pulsation and the structure of the light curve for Cepheid and RR Lyrae variables depend on the fundamental parameters of the star: mass, radius, luminosity, and effective ...temperature. Here, we train artificial neural networks on theoretical pulsation models to predict the fundamental parameters of these stars based on their period and light-curve structure. We find significant improvements to estimates of these parameters made using light-curve structure and period over estimates made using only the period. Given that the models are able to reproduce most observables, we find that the fundamental parameters of these stars can be estimated up to 60 per cent more accurately when light-curve structure is taken into consideration. We quantify which aspects of light-curve structure are most important in determining fundamental parameters, and find, for example, that the second Fourier amplitude component of RR Lyrae light curves is even more important than period in determining the effective temperature of the star. We apply this analysis to observations of hundreds Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud and thousands of RR Lyrae in the Magellanic Clouds and Galactic bulge to produce catalogues of estimated masses, radii, luminosities, and other parameters of these stars. As an example application, we estimate Wesenheit indices and use those to derive distance moduli to the Magellanic Clouds of μLMC,CEP = 18.688 ± 0.093, μLMC,RRL = 18.52 ± 0.14, and μSMC,RRL = 18.88 ± 0.17 mag.
We present time-series observations of Population II Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud at near-infrared (JHKs) wavelengths. Our sample consists of 81 variables with accurate periods and optical ...(VI) magnitudes from the OGLE survey, covering various subtypes of pulsators (BL Herculis, W Virginis, and RV Tauri). We generate light-curve templates using high-quality I-band data in the LMC from OGLE and Ks-band data in the Galactic bulge from VISTA Variables in Via Láctea survey and use them to obtain robust mean magnitudes. We derive period-luminosity (P-L) relations in the near-infrared and Period-Wesenheit (P-W) relations by combining optical and near-infrared data. Our P-L and P-W relations are consistent with published work when excluding long-period RV Tauris. We find that Pop II Cepheids and RR Lyraes follow the same P-L relations in the LMC. Therefore, we use trigonometric parallax from the Gaia DR1 for VY Pyx and the Hubble Space Telescope parallaxes for k Pav and 5 RR Lyrae variables to obtain an absolute calibration of the Galactic Ks-band P-L relation, resulting in a distance modulus to the LMC of mag. We update the mean magnitudes of Pop II Cepheids in Galactic globular clusters using our light-curve templates and obtain distance estimates to those systems, anchored to a precise late-type eclipsing binary distance to the LMC. We find that the distances to these globular clusters based on Pop II Cepheids are consistent (within ) with estimates based on the relation for horizontal branch stars.
ABSTRACT
The period–luminosity (PL) relation of Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) plays a pivotal role in extragalactic distance measurement and the determination of the Hubble constant ...(H0). In this work, we probe the geometry of the LMC through a detailed study of multiphase PL relations of these Cepheids, leveraging data from the OGLE-IV and Gaia DR3 data bases. We analyse the light curves of a combined sample of ∼3300 fundamental (FU) and first overtone (FO) mode classical Cepheids. We obtain multiphase data with 50 phase points over a complete pulsation cycle from the OGLE (V, I) and Gaia (G, GBP, GRP) photometric bands. We determine the distance modulus and reddening values of individual Cepheids by fitting a simultaneous reddening law to the apparent distance modulus values. We calculate the LMC viewing angle parameters: the inclination angle (i) and position angle of line of nodes (θlon) by fitting a plane of the form z = f(x, y) to the three-dimensional distribution of Cepheids in Cartesian coordinates $(x, y, z)$. The values of LMC viewing angles from multiphase PL relations are found to be: i = 22.°87 ± 0.°43 (stat.) ± 0.°53 (syst.), θlon = 154.°76 ± 1.°16 (stat.) ± 1.°01 (syst.), respectively. The use of multiphase PL relations in multiple bands results in lower uncertainties for the LMC viewing angle parameters as compared to those derived from the mean-light PL relations. This shows that the use of multiphase PL relations with multiwavelength photometry significantly improves the precision of these measurements, allowing better constraints on the morphology and the structure of the LMC.
ABSTRACT
We present a new grid of convective BL Herculis models using the state-of-the-art 1D non-linear radial stellar pulsation tool mesa-rsp. We investigate the impact of metallicity and four sets ...of different convection parameters on multiwavelength properties. Non-linear models were computed for periods typical for BL Her stars, i.e. 1 ≤ P(d) ≤ 4 covering a wide range of input parameters – metallicity (−2.0 dex ≤ Fe/H ≤ 0.0 dex), stellar mass (0.5–0.8 M⊙), luminosity (50–300 L⊙), and effective temperature (full extent of the instability strip; in steps of 50 K). The total number of BL Her models with full-amplitude stable pulsations used in this study is 10 280 across the four sets of convection parameters. We obtain their multiband (UBVRIJHKLL′M) light curves and derive new theoretical period–luminosity (PL), period–Wesenheit (PW), and period–radius (PR) relations at mean light. We find that the models computed with radiative cooling show statistically similar slopes for PL, PW, and PR relations. Most empirical relations match well with the theoretical PL, PW, and PR relations from the BL Her models computed using the four sets of convection parameters. However, PL slopes of the models with radiative cooling provide a better match to empirical relations for BL Her stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud in the HKS bands. For each set of convection parameters, the effect of metallicity is significant in U and B bands and negligible in infrared bands, which is consistent with empirical results. No significant metallicity effects are seen in the PR relations.
We present a study of three-dimensional structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The V- and I-band light curves of the fundamental mode RR Lyrae (RRab) stars obtained by the Optical ...Gravitational Lensing Experiment-III project were utilized in order to comprehend the SMC structure. The Fe/H–P–ϕ31 relation of Jurcsik & Kovacs is exploited to obtain the metallicities. From the three-dimensional RRab distance distributions, north-east arm and main body of the galaxy are identified. Combining metallicities with spatial distribution of these tracers, no radial metallicity gradient in the SMC has been detected. Dividing the entire sample into three parts: north-eastern, central and south-western, we find that the central part has a significantly larger line of sight depth as compared to rest of the parts, indicating that the SMC may have a bulge. Results obtained from the I-band data seem to be reliable and were further substantiated using the Smolec relation. Distribution of SMC RRab stars was modelled as a triaxial ellipsoid. Errors in structural parameters of the SMC ellipsoid were obtained from Monte Carlo simulations. We estimated the axes ratios of the galaxy as 1.00 ± 0.000: 1.310 ± 0.029: 8.269 ± 0.934, the inclination of the longest axis with line of sight i = 2
$_{.}^{\circ}$
265 ± 0
$_{.}^{\circ}$
784 and the position angle of the line of nodes θlon = 74
$_{.}^{\circ}$
307 ± 0
$_{.}^{\circ}$
509 from the variance weighted I-band determinations.
ABSTRACT
We present an analysis of the theoretical and observed light-curve parameters of the fundamental mode (FU) classical Cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds in V- and I- photometric bands. The ...state-of-the-art 1D non-linear radial stellar pulsation (RSP) code in mesa (mesa-rsp) has been utilized to generate the theoretical light curves using four sets of convection parameters. Theoretical light curves with two chemical compositions: Z = 0.008 and Z = 0.004 appropriate for the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), respectively, covered a wide range of periods ($3\lt P (\rm {d})\lt 32$). The observed light curves are taken from the OGLE-IV data base. We compare theoretical and observed Fourier parameters (FPs), and investigate the period–luminosity (PL), period–colour (PC), and amplitude–colour (AC) relations as a function of pulsation phase for short (log P < 1), long (log P > 1), and all periods. The multiphase relations obtained from theoretical and observed light curves in the PL/PC/AC plane are found to be dynamic in nature, with the effect more pronounced at Φ ∼ 0.75–0.85. Furthermore, a contrasting behaviour of the theoretical/observed multiphase PL and PC relations between the short and long periods has been found for both LMC and SMC. The analysis shows that multiphase PL relations are more stringent to test the models with observations over the FPs. Distances to the LMC/SMC determined using long period Cepheids are found to be in good agreement with the literature values when the term R21 is added to the PL relation.
ABSTRACT The effect of metallicity on the theoretical and empirical period–luminosity relations of Cepheid variables is not well understood and remains a highly debated issue. Here, we examine ...empirical colour–magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of Classical and Type-II Cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds and compare those with the theoretically predicted instability strip (IS) edges. We explore the effects of incorporating turbulent flux, turbulent pressure, and radiative cooling into the convection theory on the predicted IS at various metallicities using Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics – Radial Stellar Pulsations. We find that the edges become redder with the increasing complexity of convection physics incorporated in the fiducial convection sets, and are similarly shifted to the red with increasing metallicity. The inclusion of turbulent flux and pressure improves the agreement of the red edge of the IS, while their exclusion leads to better agreement with observations of the blue edge. About 90 per cent of observed stars are found to fall within the predicted bluest and reddest edges across the considered variations of turbulent convection parameters. Furthermore, we identify and discuss discrepancies between theoretical and observed CMDs in the low-effective temperature and high-luminosity regions for stars with periods greater than ∼20 d. These findings highlight the potential for calibrating the turbulent convection parameters in stellar pulsation models or the prediction of a new class of rare, long-period, ‘red Cepheids’, thereby improving our understanding of Cepheids and their role in cosmological studies.
ABSTRACT
We present an analysis on the behaviour of the Galactic bulge and the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) δ Scuti stars in terms of period–colour and amplitude–colour (PCAC) relations at maximum, ...mean, and minimum light. The publicly available Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment-IV (OGLE-IV) light curves for Galactic bulge and OGLE-III light curves for LMC δ Scuti stars are exploited for the analysis. It has been found that the Galactic bulge δ Scuti stars obey flat PC relations at maximum/mean/minimum light, while the LMC δ Scutis have sloped, sloped, and flat PC relations at maximum, mean, and minimum light, respectively. Both the Galactic bulge and the LMC δ Scutis have sloped, flat, and sloped AC relations at maximum, mean, and minimum light, respectively. These relations also show that Galactic δ Scutis are hotter as compared to their LMC counterparts. The period–amplitude (PA) relations for δ Scutis exhibit different behaviour in the Galactic bulge and the LMC. The LMC variables are found to have higher amplitudes at a given period. The amplitude of the Galactic bulge δ Scuti shows a bimodal distribution which can be modelled using a two-component Gaussian Mixture Model: one component with a lower amplitude and another with a higher amplitude. The observed behaviour of the δ Scuti PCAC relations can be explained using the theory of the interaction of hydrogen ionization front (HIF) and stellar photosphere as well as the PA diagram. We use mesa-rsp to calculate theoretical non-linear hydrodynamical pulsation models for δ Scuti stars with input metallicities of Z = 0.02 and Z = 0.008 appropriate for the Galactic bulge and LMC, respectively. The observed PCAC relations and theoretical calculations support the HIF–photosphere interaction theory.
PDF
