Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: We provide the first detailed study of the RR Lyrae period-luminosity (PL) relation in the ugriz bandpasses of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) filter system. We argue that tight, simple PL relations are not present in the SDSS filters, except for the redder bandpasses i and (especially) z . However, for all bandpasses, we show that by incorporating terms involving a (fairly reddening-independent) "pseudocolor" C 0 ≡ (u − g) 0 − (g − r) 0 , we can obtain tight (nonlinear) relations. We provide such theoretically calibrated relations in the present paper, which should be useful in deriving precise absolute magnitudes (hence distances) and intrinsic colors (hence reddening values) even to individual field RR Lyrae stars. For applications to cases in which photometry in all five passbands may not be available, we also provide simple (although less precise) average PL relations for the i and z bandpasses, which read as and Similarly, simple period-color relations for (r − i) 0 , (g − r) 0 , and (u − z) 0 are also provided.
DOI: 10.1086/591231
Authors: C. Cáceres, M. Catelan
Institution: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2038949070