Letter to the Editor

The Baade-Wesselink p-factor applicable to LMC Cepheids^⋆

¹ Laboratoire Fizeau, UNS/OCA/CNRS UMR6525, Parc Valrose, 06108 Nice Cedex 2, France
e-mail: Nicolas.Nardetto@oca.eu
² Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 48 Pjatnitskaya Str., Moscow 109017, Russia
³ Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique, UMR 5572, Université Paul Sabatier – Toulouse 3, 14 avenue Edouard Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France
⁴ Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
⁵ Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160-C, Concepción, Chile
⁶ Warsaw University Observatory, Al. Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478 Warsaw, Poland
⁷ LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS UMR 8109, UPMC, Université Paris Diderot, 5 place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon, France

Received: 10 June 2011
Accepted: 26 September 2011

Abstract

Context. Recent observations of LMC Cepheids bring new constraints on the slope of the period-projection factor relation (hereafter Pp relation) that is currently used in the Baade-Wesselink (hereafter BW) method of distance determination. The discrepancy between observations and theoretical analysis is particularly significant for short period Cepheids

Aims. We investigate three physical effects that might possibly explain this discrepancy: (1) the spectroscopic S/N that is systematically lower for LMC Cepheids (around 10) compared to Galactic ones (up to 300), (2) the impact of the metallicity on the dynamical structure of LMC Cepheids, and (3) the combination of infrared photometry/interferometry with optical spectroscopy.

Methods. To study the S/N we use a very simple toy model of Cepheids. The impact of metallicity on the projection factor is based on the hydrodynamical model of δ Cep already described in previous studies. This model is also used to derive the position of the optical versus infrared photospheric layers.

Results. We find no significant effect of S/N, metallicity, and optical-versus-infrared observations on the Pp relation.

Conclusions. The Pp relation of Cepheids in the LMC does not differ from the Galactic relation. This allows its universal application to determine distances to extragalactic Cepheids via BW analysis.