Current Challenges in Cepheid Distance Calibrations Using Gaia Early Data Release 3

Owens, Kayla A.; Freedman, Wendy L.; Lee, Abigail J.; Lee, Abigail J.

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac479e

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…While our results are largely consistent with recent measurements, we track differences in two studies, (Wielgórski et al 2017;Owens et al 2022) that employ the SMC to a depth effect. Correcting for the geometry and limiting the radius to the SMC core is shown to narrow the distance range resulting in a sample insured to be at the same distance as the DEBs that also produces a metallicity term on the same trend line as seen between the MW and LMC.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…LMC and SMC samples only). Owens et al (2022) (hereafter OW22) compared Cepheids and geometric distances in the MW, LMC, and SMC and claim poor agreement, attributing this to an error in Gaia EDR3 parallaxes and proposing a large, positive Gaia parallax offset coupled with no Cepheid metallicity term (including for the commonly found one in W V I ), with the consequence of a shorter Cepheid dis-tance scale and higher Hubble constant 2 . There are numerous, important differences in the data used by OW22 and ours.…”

Section: Comparison With Other Empirical Estimates Of γmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Improved Calibration of the Wavelength Dependence of Metallicity on the Cepheid Leavitt law

Breuval¹,

Riess²,

Kervella³

2022

Preprint

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The Cepheid period-luminosity (PL) relation (or Leavitt law) has served as the first rung of the most widely used extragalactic distance ladders and is central to the determination of the local value of the Hubble constant (H 0 ). We investigate the influence of metallicity on Cepheid brightness, a term that significantly improves the overall fit of the distance ladder, to better define its wavelength dependence. To this aim, we compare the PL relations obtained for three Cepheid samples having distinct chemical composition (in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds) and focusing on the use of improved and recent data while covering a metallicity range of about 1 dex. We estimate the metallicity effect (hereafter γ) in 15 filters from mid-infrared to optical wavelengths, including 5 Wesenheit indices, and we derive a significant metallicity term in all filters, in accord with recent empirical studies and models, in the sense of metal-rich Cepheids being brighter than metal-poor ones. We describe the contribution of various systematic effects in the determination of the γ term. We find no evidence of γ changing over the wavelength range 0.5 − 4.5 µm indicating the main influence of metallicity on Cepheids is in their luminosity rather than color. We identify factors which sharpen the empirical constraints on the metallicity term over past studies including corrections for the depth of the Magellanic Clouds, better calibrated Cepheid photometry, improved Milky Way extinction estimates and revised and expanded metallicity measurements in the LMC.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Comparison With Other Empirical Estimates Of γmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Improved Calibration of the Wavelength Dependence of Metallicity on the Cepheid Leavitt law

Breuval¹,

Riess²,

Kervella³

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the present work, we adopted the standard reddening law from Fitzpatrick (1999) for our G, BP, RP, V, I, J, H, and K S magnitudes and the reddening law from Indebetouw et al (2005) for Spitzer filters with a uniform R V value of 3.1 ± 0.1. We note that the uncertainty on this parameter is usually neglected in most studies, even when combining Cepheid samples in different galaxies (e.g., Wielgórski et al 2017;Gieren et al 2018;Owens et al 2022). While it is a reasonable assumption for the MW and LMC, the SMC is likely to have a lower R V value (Gordon et al 2003); however, this value has not been measured for our population of Cepheids, so it is still unclear whether it applies to the present sample.…”

Section: Reddening Lawmentioning

confidence: 80%

An Improved Calibration of the Wavelength Dependence of Metallicity on the Cepheid Leavitt Law

Breuval

Riess

Kervella

et al. 2022

ApJ

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The Cepheid period–luminosity (PL) relation (or Leavitt law) has served as the first rung of the most widely used extragalactic distance ladder and is central to the determination of the local value of the Hubble constant (H 0). We investigate the influence of metallicity on Cepheid brightness, a term that significantly improves the overall fit of the distance ladder, to better define its wavelength dependence. To this aim, we compare the PL relations obtained for three Cepheid samples having distinct chemical composition (in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds) and focusing on the use of improved and recent data while covering a metallicity range of about 1 dex. We estimate the metallicity effect (hereafter γ) in 15 filters from mid-IR to optical wavelengths, including five Wesenheit indices, and we derive a significant metallicity term in all filters, in agreement with recent empirical studies and models, in the sense of metal-rich Cepheids being brighter than metal-poor ones. We describe the contribution of various systematic effects in the determination of the γ term. We find no evidence of γ changing over the wavelength range 0.5–4.5 μm, indicating that the main influence of metallicity on Cepheids is in their luminosity rather than color. Finally, we identify factors that sharpen the empirical constraints on the metallicity term over past studies, including corrections for the depth of the Magellanic Clouds, better-calibrated Cepheid photometry, improved Milky Way extinction estimates, and revised and expanded metallicity measurements in the LMC.

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“…Possible systematic GAIA Cepheid parallax uncertainties were investigated using globular clusters in Vasiliev & Baumgardt (2021) and Maíz Apellániz et al (2021). Based on MW Cepheid parallax uncertainties and metallicity effects, in Owens et al (2022) and references therein, it was also concluded that the uncertainty in the derived Cepheid distance scale may be underestimated, suggesting a systematic error floor of ∼3%.…”

Section: Milky Way Parallax Uncertaintiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Hubble Tension Revisited: Additional Local Distance Ladder Uncertainties

Mörtsell

Goobar

Johansson

et al. 2022

ApJ

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In a recent paper, we investigated possible systematic uncertainties related to the Cepheid color–luminosity calibration method and their influence on the tension between the Hubble constant as inferred from distances to Type Ia supernovae and the cosmic microwave background as measured with the Planck satellite. Here, we study the impact of other sources of uncertainty in the supernova distance ladder, including Cepheid temperature and metallicity variations, supernova magnitudes, and GAIA parallax distances. Using Cepheid data in 19 Type Ia supernova host galaxies from Riess et al., anchor data from Riess et al., and a set of recalibrated Milky Way Cepheid distances, we obtain H 0 = 71.9 ± 2.2 km s−1 Mpc−1, 2.0σ from the Planck value. Excluding Cepheids with estimated color excesses E ˆ ( V − I ) = 0.15 mag to mitigate the impact of the Cepheid color–luminosity calibration, the inferred Hubble constant is H 0 = 68.1 ± 2.6 km s−1 Mpc−1, removing the tension with the Planck value.

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Current Challenges in Cepheid Distance Calibrations Using Gaia Early Data Release 3

Cited by 20 publications

References 70 publications

An Improved Calibration of the Wavelength Dependence of Metallicity on the Cepheid Leavitt law

An Improved Calibration of the Wavelength Dependence of Metallicity on the Cepheid Leavitt law

An Improved Calibration of the Wavelength Dependence of Metallicity on the Cepheid Leavitt Law

The Hubble Tension Revisited: Additional Local Distance Ladder Uncertainties

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