Published in New Astronomy Reviews, Volume 48, Issue 9, p. 659-665, 2004.
astro-ph/0310673

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Abstract. The average of 14 recent measurements of the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) implies a true modulus of 18.50 ± 0.02 mag, and demonstrates a trend in the past 2 years of convergence toward a standard value. The distance indicators reviewed are the red clump, the tip of the red giant branch, Cepheid, RR Lyrae, and Mira variable stars, cluster main-sequence fitting, supernova 1987A, and eclipsing binaries. The eclipsing binaries yield a consistent distance on average; however, the internal scatter is twice as large as the average measurement error. I discuss parameters of LMC structure that pertain to distance indicators, and speculate that warps discovered using the color of the clump are not really warps.

Keywords: Galaxies: Magellanic Clouds; Cosmology: distance scale

Table of Contents

• INTRODUCTION
• RED CLUMP
• Tip of Red Giant Branch
• CEPHEID VARIABLE STARS
• RR LYRAE VARIABLE STARS
• OTHER DISTANCE INDICATORS
• Mira Variables
• Cluster Main-Sequence Fitting
• Supernova 1987A
• Eclipsing Binaries
• SUMMARY OF LMC DISTANCE
• STRUCTURE OF THE LMC
• REFERENCES
• APPENDIX A