# The Distance to the LMC via the Eclipsing Binary HV 2274

## 1 Introduction

The Hubble constant, $`H_0`$, is one of the most important and heavily investigated cosmological parameters. At the moment, the most reliable way to measure $`H_0`$ is to determine the recession velocity and distance of objects with motions dominated by the Hubble linear expansion. Extragalactic distances are determined by constructing a distance ladder, the first rung of which is often occupied by the LMC. Since the uncertainties in the radial recession velocities are typically very small, the main error in $`H_0`$ comes from the error in distance. Therefore, to obtain the true absolute value of $`H_0`$, one requires the true value of the distance to the LMC. Different distance determinations to the LMC result in conflicting values of the distance modulus spanning the range between $`\mu _{LMC}=18.1`$ (Stanek, Zaritsky & Harris 1998) and $`\mu _{LMC}=18.7`$ (Feast & Catchpole 1997), an astounding spread of 27% in distance.

One potentially accurate method for determining the distance to the LMC is the derivation of stellar parameters from eclipsing binary stars. This technique dates back to at least 1974 (Dworak 1974). More recently, Bell et al. (1991) and Bell et al. (1993) determined distances to the Magellanic Clouds using ground-based spectroscopy and photometry. Of course, the best experimental method for determining eclipsing binary stellar parameters would be acquisition of accurate, space-based, broad spectral range data, e.g. HST/STIS spectra. The many parameters which must be solved for simultaneously may give rise to regions of degeneracy in the fit if the spectra do not extend over a wide enough range in wavelength. One way to compensate for a narrow spectral range is to include ground-based photometry in the fit. Unfortunately, this method also reintroduces all the uncertainties inherent in ground-based photometry.

The first eclipsing binary used to determine the distance to the LMC with space-based spectrophotometry was HV 2274, a system whose first CCD light curve was presented by Watson et al. (1992), along with estimates of maximum light magnitudes and colors of $`V14.16`$ mag and $`(BV)0.18`$ mag. The stellar parameters of this system were determined by Guinan et al. (1998a,b). By splicing together four HST/FOS spectra to form a single spectrum spanning 1150 $`\dot{A}`$ to 4820 $`\dot{A}`$, Guinan et al. (1998a,b) used ATLAS 9 model atmospheres (Kurucz 1991) to simultaneously fit for the emergent flux at the surface of the stars, the reddening, $`E(BV)`$, the normalized interstellar extinction curve, $`k(\lambda V)`$, and the ratios of the stellar radii to the distance of the binary. In their original fit to the spectra, Guinan et al. (1998a) included the photometric points of Watson et al. (1992) and found a reddening of $`E(BV)=0.083\pm 0.006`$ mag and a distance modulus $`\mu _{LMC}=18.42\pm 0.07`$ mag. While generally robust, this simultaneous fitting for both reddening and extinction admits a possible degeneracy in the region $`E(BV)0.080.12`$ mag. This region arises because similar relative extinction corrections, $`E(BV)\times k(\lambda V)`$, may be obtained with varying values of $`E(BV)`$ (Guinan et al. 1998b).

The reddening towards HV 2274 was also determined by Udalski et al. (1998; thereafter U98), who obtained $`UBVI`$ photometry of the binary and the surrounding field. Consistent with the stellar parameters derived by Guinan et al. (1998a), U98 found that the color of the system remained nearly constant, independent of the binary phase. In agreement with Watson et al. (1992), U98 found a maximum $`V`$ magnitude of 14.16 mag. However, U98 disagreed with the Watson et al (1992) $`(BV)`$ color, instead finding $`(BV)=0.129`$ mag. In addition, U98 found $`(UB)=0.905`$ mag.

This multi-color photometric data for HV 2274 and surrounding O/B stars allowed for an independent determination of the reddening towards HV 2274. By plotting a $`(UB)`$ vs $`(BV)`$ diagram for early spectral type stars, the reddening may be determined by measuring their displacement from a sequence of unreddened stars. Adopting a direction of reddening $`E(UB)/E(BV)=0.76`$ (Fitzpatrick 1985), U98 found a reddening to HV 2274 of $`E(BV)=0.149\pm 0.015`$ mag. This value was consistent with the reddening they found to other $`B`$ stars in the surrounding field. Guinan et al. (1998b) then refit their spectra using only the $`B`$ and $`V`$ photometric points from U98 and found that the multi-parameter fit swung to the other end of the degeneracy region and gave $`E(BV)=0.12`$ mag. This reduced the distance modulus to the LMC to $`\mu _{LMC}=18.30\pm 0.07`$ mag, about 2 sigma less than the original.

As we will discuss in detail below, however, the uncertainties in $`U`$ and $`B`$ photometry are numerous. $`U`$-band photometry is quite sensitive to the specific filter used for spectral types O and B, exactly those stars used by U98 to determine the reddening. On the other hand, $`B`$-band photometry is sensitive to the specific filter used for spectral types A and F. The U98 observations were made using a non-standard $`U`$-band filter with a steeper cutoff at short wavelengths ($`\lambda <3500\dot{A}`$) than is typical, and were calibrated using only a few standard fields containing mostly spectral type A and F standard stars. Therefore, we try to verify the reddening results of U98 using a more typical $`U`$ filter and a larger sample of standard stars.

## 2 Observations and Photometric Reductions

$`UBV`$ photometry of HV 2274 was carried out on the night of Oct. $`18^{th}`$, 1998 at the 0.9-m telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). We used the Site2K\_6 CCD at Cassegrain focus, a $`2048\times 2048`$ CCD with a plate scale of 0.4 arcseconds/pixel and a total field of view of 13.1 arcminutes on a side. The filters used were CTIO VTek2 5438/1026, BTek2 4200/1050 and U#2 3570/660. The U filter was made of UG1 glass with a CuSO4 liquid solution as a red leak blocker. Conditions were photometric. Table 1 contains the epochs and durations of our observations of HV 2274. All images were bias subtracted and flat-fielded in the standard manner. The $`B`$-band and $`V`$-band observations were flat-fielded using dome-flats corrected by a median of twilight and dawn sky-flats. The $`U`$-band observations were flat-fielded using the median of twilight and dawn sky-flats taken over four nights.

In order to obtain transformations from instrumental to standard magnitudes, we also observed 51 standard stars from 6 different Landolt (1992) fields and one E-Region (Graham 1982). Instrumental magnitudes were calculated from aperture photometry performed with a radius of 5.8 arcseconds using DAOPHOT II (Stetson 1987, 1991). Using a standard least squares fitting routine, we performed transformations of several functional forms, fitting both observed colors and magnitudes as various functions of standard color, standard magnitude and airmass. We found that all fits produced comparable results that changed the final colors of our O/B stars by at most 0.01 mag. The adopted magnitude transformations allow for an easy comparison on a filter by filter basis with future observations. In the following expressions we represent observed magnitude as the lower case letter, standard magnitude as the upper case letter and the airmass as $`X`$.

$$u=U+4.7340.090(UB)+0.444X$$
(1)   
$$b=B+3.125+0.107(BV)+0.263X$$
(2)   
$$v=V+2.9740.021(BV)+0.138X$$
(3)   
The range of airmass and color of our standard star observations was sufficient to include the value of the atmospheric extinction coefficient as a free parameter in our fit. The atmospheric extinction coefficients determined for this run are 0.444, 0.263, and 0.138, for the $`U`$, $`B`$ and $`V`$ bands, respectively. These compare well to the values of 0.453, 0.277 and 0.150 calculated by Landolt (1992) as the mean value of 13 years of observing runs at CTIO. In Figure 1, we show the residuals of our transformations versus standard color in the sense of observed magnitude minus the fitted magnitude. We find root mean square residuals of 0.024, 0.010 and 0.006 mag for the $`U`$, $`B`$ and $`V`$ passbands respectively. As is typical for this passband, the residuals in $`U`$ are comparatively large. However, we see no systematic increase in the size of residuals in any of our filters as we go to bluer colors. In Figure 2, we show the residuals of our transformations versus standard magnitude. We see no evidence for a dependence of residual size with magnitude.

Point spread function (PSF) fitting photometry was performed for all the stars in the HV2274 field. We chose this method instead of aperture photometry since although HV 2274 is well separated from its neighbors, this was not the case for the other O/B stars in the field for which we wish to tabulate reddenings. Thus we performed PSF fitting photometry for all the stars in our program field. Both the PSF and the aperture correction vary across the field of the CTIO 0.9m $`2K\times 2K`$ CCD. We used the photometry package DAOPHOT II which allows for a quadratically varying PSF. The variation of the aperture correction across the field is only of order 0.03 mag. Even small relative shifts, however, can significantly disturb the morphology of a given set of O/B stars in the color-color plot. Thus, in order to properly account for the spatial variation in the aperture corrections, we determined the aperture corrections independently for each of the O/B stars. The aperture correction was determined from a neighbor-subtracted image. For a few of our stars, an imperfect PSF resulted in small regions of oversubtraction, which produced noisy growth curves and unreliable aperture corrections. For these stars we adopted the aperture correction of their nearest bright neighbor. We note that in the case of HV 2274 aperture photometry and PSF fitting photometry produced identical results.

Our results for HV 2274 are,

$$V=14.203\pm 0.006$$
(4)   
$$(BV)=0.172\pm 0.013$$
(5)   
$$(UB)=0.793\pm 0.027$$
(6)   
We include in our error both the formal photon counting errors and an estimation of the errors in the transformations from instrumental to standard magnitude. We compute the transformation error as the root mean square of the residuals shown in Figure 1. In Table 2 we compare our results with past efforts. Since U98 found the color of the binary to be invariant, we compare our colors calculated at a specific phase between eclipses with those of U98 and Watson et al. (1992) calculated as means across the entire cycle. Our $`V`$-band magnitude is close to the maximum light found by U98, while our $`(BV)`$ color is consistent with the original photometry published by Watson (1992).

Table 3 provides a complete listing of our photometry of HV 2274 and ten other B stars in the surrounding field, while Figure 3 is a finding chart. These stars are included in the eleven-star set used by U98 and for ease of comparison, we adopt the same ID numbers. We exclude star 1 from our set as it appeared confused in our images. In Figure 4, we compare our results with that of U98 in a $`(UB)`$ versus $`(BV)`$ plot. We note that although there is a significant shift to redder $`(UB)`$ and bluer $`(BV)`$ in our data, the overall morphology of the set of stars is similar.

Although we are able to compare our colors with those of U98, the observed magnitudes were not published and we cannot make comparisons on a filter by filter basis. This makes it difficult to determine for certain where the color shifts originate. We may, however, speculate on a few possible sources of the problem.

First, we consider the possibility that at least part of the offset is due to the steep short-wavelength cutoff of the $`U`$ filter used by U98. Differences in short-wavelength cutoff of the $`U`$\- band can introduce systematic deviations, significant mainly for B type stars (Bessell 1986). The sign of this effect is such that a steeper blue cutoff results in smaller $`U`$ magnitudes for stars with $`(UB)<0`$ (Bessell 1990). Assuming for a moment agreement in $`B`$ magnitudes, this implies that spectral type B stars will appear bluer in $`(UB)`$ through a filter with a sharper short-wavelength cutoff. We see evidence for this effect in the expected direction as the $`U`$ filter used by U98 has a sharper short-wavelength cutoff than does the CTIO filter, and the U98 results are bluer in $`(UB)`$.

However, the magnitude of the difference in the $`(UB)`$ photometry is larger than is expected from solely a $`U`$ passband mismatch. Therefore, we also consider the possibility that problems in the $`B`$ passband may contribute to the discrepancy in $`(UB)`$ as well as the discrepancy in $`(BV)`$. Because the $`B`$ band is situated near the confluence of the Balmer lines, small shifts in the short wavelength cutoff of the $`B`$ filter will affect the colors of A and F stars (Bessell 1990). Many of the standard stars used both by our group and U98 were spectral type A and F stars. This means that both our transformations were largely driven by those stars most sensitive to $`B`$ passband mismatches. A small $`B`$ passband mismatch could therefore introduce significant shifts in the transformations from observed to standard magnitudes. However, our complete spread of standard stars includes stars of spectral types O through M, including many more red stars than U98. We deem it unlikely that our transformation could be adversely affected by difficulties in the A and F stars and yet emerge with a satisfactorily linear color term over the entire range of stellar characteristics.

Conversely, $`V`$-band problems cause significant changes mainly for M stars which are much redder than the majority of standard stars used. Therefore, the discrepancies in $`(BV)`$ are likely to be due to a $`B`$-band mismatch, rather then a problem with the $`V`$-band.

Another possible source of discrepancy is nonlinearities in the transformations from observed to standard magnitudes. In Figure 5 we again compare our colors to those of U98 this time by plotting our color residuals versus magnitude, in the sense $`\mathrm{\Delta }Color=Color_{\mathrm{This}\mathrm{\_}\mathrm{work}}Color_{\mathrm{U98}}`$. Most of the errors in $`\mathrm{\Delta }Color`$ are highly correlated between individual points and between our and the U98 study. Therefore, as a first approximation, we assume that the only truly uncorrelated errors are the ones associated with the photon counting noise. A linear least squares fit to the eleven points using only our estimated photon noise (U98 had more observations and so their photon noise should be negligible with respect to ours) yields $`\chi _{\mathrm{\Delta }(UB)}^2=151.85`$ and $`\chi _{\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)}^2=7.26`$. The small $`\chi _{\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)}^2`$ suggests that there is little additional uncertainty due to, say, different transformations or statistical error. The linear relation is, therefore, well established and given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)=(0.401\pm 0.002)+(0.007\pm 0.003)(B15.19)`$, where the errors in the slope and zero point are uncorrelated. The very high $`\chi _{\mathrm{\Delta }(UB)}^2`$ is a strong evidence that either $`\mathrm{\Delta }(UB)`$ versus $`B`$ relation cannot be represented as a straight line (indicating severe photometric problems) or that there are additional sources of uncorrelated noise, which we did not take into account. To investigate the second possibility, we renormalize $`\chi ^2`$ to the number of degrees of freedom, i.e. we fix $`\chi _{\mathrm{\Delta }(UB)}^2=9.00`$. This procedure suggests the existence of 0.038 mag of additional error which should be added in quadrature to each point. We note that 0.038 is of order of a total error in $`U`$-magnitudes claimed by both our and U98 groups and can be understood as resulting from additional statistical uncertainty due to only 4 U98 epochs, systematic errors from U flat fielding and error in determining the U extinction. In Figure 5 we show the augmented errors for $`\mathrm{\Delta }(UB)`$ and our photon errors for $`\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)`$. The zero points of the linear relations represent an approximate offsets between our and the U98 photometry, but the errors \[especially in $`\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)`$\] are smaller than the actual ones because they were specifically chosen to judge the significance of the slopes. The slope in $`\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)`$ is significant at the 2.3-$`\sigma `$ level and the slope in $`\mathrm{\Delta }(UB)`$ with renormalized $`\chi ^2`$ is significant at 1.5-$`\sigma `$ level. This suggest some non-linearity in the transformations from observed to standard magnitude in either our work or that of U98.

## 3 The Reddening to HV 2274

To determine the reddening to HV 2274 we use the Q parameter method recently used by Harris, Zaritsky & Thompson (1997) where Q is defined as

$$Q=(UB)0.76(BV)0.05(BV)^2$$
(7)   
This is equivalent to a rotation of a $`(UB)`$ versus $`(BV)`$ color-color diagram so that the direction of reddening $`E(UB)/E(BV)=0.76+0.05(BV)`$ is parallel to the $`(BV)`$ axis. As detailed in Harris et al. (1997), the coefficient of 0.76 in the direction of reddening was taken from the ratio of color excesses $`E(UB)/E(BV)`$ evaluated from the average LMC extinction curve outside 30 Dor (Fitzpatrick 1985), while the coefficient of 0.05 was derived directly from Galactic studies (Hiltner & Johnson 1956).

In Figure 6 we plot a line of unreddened stars and our program stars in a $`(BV)`$ versus Q diagram. Again, our errors include the estimated error in our transformations. The line of unreddened stars was drawn from Harris et al. (1997) and was determined by a fitting a line in a $`(BV)`$ versus Q diagram to a set of observations of unreddened Galactic O/B stars from Straizys (1992). The equation of this line is given by

$$(BV)=0.338\times Q0.036$$
(8)   
The reddening of a program star in such a diagram is then given by the vertical distance between that star and the unreddened line. We note that our stars fall in a fairly tight distribution, parallel to the unreddened line. We find a median reddening of $`E(BV)=0.083`$ mag, while for HV 2274 we find

$$E(BV)=0.088\pm 0.025$$
(9)   
In Table 4 we compare this result with previous measurements. It is noteworthy that this value of $`E(BV)`$ derived from $`UBV`$ photometry is entirely consistent with the reddening fit by Guinan et al. (1998a) using spectra and Watson (1992) $`B`$ and $`V`$ photometry. It is encouraging that two such different methods produced virtually identical results.

This reddening to HV 2274 is consistent with other literature on this subject. Unfortunately, HV 2274 lies outside both the LMC reddening maps of Oestreicher & Schmidt-Kaler (1996) and Harris et al. (1997) and the LMC foreground reddening map of Oestreicher, Gocherman & Schmidt-Kaler (1995). However, we may still make use of their results to estimate the likelihood of obtaining a reddening this low. Oestricher et al. (1995) finds that the foreground reddening is extremely patchy and varies from $`E(BV)_{fg}=0.00`$ mag to $`E(BV)_{fg}=0.15`$ mag, with a mean of $`E(BV)_{fg}=0.06\pm 0.02`$ mag. However, the shape of the frequency distribution of foreground reddenings makes quoting a mean value of their distribution somewhat misleading. We note that 60% of their measurements found a foreground reddening of less then $`0.05`$ mag. Similar conclusions were drawn by Bessell (1991), who concurs that the foreground reddening to the LMC is varied with $`E(BV)_{fg}=0.04`$ to $`0.09`$ mag, and Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998) who find that the typical foreground reddening measured from dust emission in surrounding annuli is $`E(BV)_{fg}=0.075`$ mag. Since we are primarily interested in the total reddening to HV 2274, including reddening within the LMC, we turn again to Harris et al. (1997) who present a histogram of total reddening measurements obtained using the Q parameter method described above. This histogram is drawn from measurements of 2069 O/B type main sequence stars in a $`1.9^{}\times 1.5^{}`$ section of the LMC. Reproducing this histogram and integrating gives us a 15% probability of obtaining a total reddening measurement of less then $`E(BV)=0.10`$ mag. Therefore, we conclude that although our derived reddening to HV 2274 is low, it is not impossibly so. Our reddening is comfortably above the mean foreground reddening and in a plausible region of total reddening.

## 4 Conclusions

We obtained $`UBV`$ photometry of the eclipsing binary HV 2274. Our principal results are: a reddening, $`E(BV)=0.088\pm 0.025`$, consistent with the original fit of Guinan et al. (1998a) and color, $`(BV)=0.172\pm 0.013`$, consistent with the original photometry of Watson (1992). Our results suggest a return to the original estimate of $`\mu _{LMC}18.4`$ mag.

Even with our generous estimate of error in $`E(BV)`$, our result is still $`2\sigma `$ different from that of U98 suggesting a real difference in our photometry. Consequently, our reddening is inconsistent with the later results of Guinan et al. (1998b), emphasizing the sensitivity of the spectrophometric fit to small changes in the photometry.

Our discussion has emphasized that the systematic uncertainties and variations in atmospheric transmission, filters, and calibrations inherent in ground-based data are likely to limit the accuracy of resulting distances determined from eclipsing binary systems. These systematic uncertainties affect distance moduli at the 5-10% level and will not be sufficiently reduced with larger samples. The determination of distances by solving eclipsing binary systems will become much more reliable with accurate measurements of interstellar extinction. Ground-based infrared photometry is one way to improve on the current determinations. The best way, however, would be to extend space-based spectra over a wide enough range in wavelength to obviate the need for ground-based spectra altogether.

We thank Andrzej Udalski for kindly providing his colors for HV 2274 and neighbors. We also thank Edward Guinan and Ignasi Ribas for sending us their ephemeris for HV 2274 in convenient electronic form. Work at LLNL supported by DOE contract W7405-ENG-48.