Description
RR Lyrae variable stars are the primary Population II distance indicator. Likewise, the LMC constitutes a key step in the extragalactic distance scale. By combining near-IR photometry and spectroscopically measured metallicities for a homogeneous sample of 50 RR Lyr stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), we investigate the metallicity dependence of the period-luminosity relation in the near-infrared (IR), use the newly derived relations to re-derive the distance to the LMC, and compare the distance moduli obtained from RR Lyr and red clump stars.
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