No Arabic abstract
We independently determine the zero-point offset of the Gaia early Data Release-3 (EDR3) parallaxes based on $sim 110,000$ W Ursae Majoris (EW)-type eclipsing binary systems. EWs cover almost the entire sky and are characterized by a relatively complete coverage in magnitude and color. They are an excellent proxy for Galactic main-sequence stars. We derive a $W1$-band Period-Luminosity relation with a distance accuracy of $7.4%$, which we use to anchor the Gaia parallax zero-point. The final, global parallax offsets are $-28.6pm0.6$ $mu$as and $-25.4pm4.0$ $mu$as (before correction) and $4.2pm0.5$ $mu$as and $4.6pm3.7$ $mu$as (after correction) for the five- and six-parameter solutions, respectively. The total systematic uncertainty is $1.8$ $mu$as. The spatial distribution of the parallax offsets shows that the bias in the corrected Gaia EDR3 parallaxes is less than 10 $mu$as across $40%$ of the sky. Only $15%$ of the sky is characterized by a parallax offset greater than 30 $mu$as. Thus, we have provided independent evidence that the parallax zero-point correction provided by the Gaia team significantly reduces the prevailing bias. Combined with literature data, we find that the overall Gaia EDR3 parallax offsets for Galactic stars are $[-20, -30]$ $mu$as and 4-10 $mu$as, respectively, before and after correction. For specific regions, an additional deviation of about 10 $mu$as is found.
The second data release of it Gaia rm revealed a parallax zero point offset of $-0.029$~mas based on quasars. The value depended on the position on the sky, and also likely on magnitude and colour. The offset and its dependence on other parameters inhibited an improvement in the local distance scale using e.g. the Cepheid and RR Lyrae period-luminosity relations. Analysis of the recent it Gaia rm Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) reveals a mean parallax zero point offset of $-0.021$~mas based on quasars. The it Gaia rm team addresses the parallax zero point offset in detail and proposes a recipe to correct for it, based on ecliptic latitude, $G$-band magnitude, and colour information. This paper is a completely independent investigation into this issue focussing on the spatial dependence of the correction based on quasars and the magnitude dependence based on wide binaries. The spatial and magnitude corrections are connected to each other in the overlap region between $17 < G < 19$. The spatial correction is presented at several spatial resolutions based on the HEALPix formalism. The colour dependence of the parallax offset is unclear and in any case secondary to the spatial and magnitude dependence. The spatial and magnitude corrections are applied to two samples of brighter sources, namely a sample of $sim$100 stars with independent trigonometric parallax measurements from it HST rm data, and a sample of 75 classical cepheids using photometric parallaxes. The mean offset between the observed GEDR3 parallax and the independent trigonometric parallax (excluding outliers) is about $-39$~muas, and after applying the correction it is consistent with being zero. For the classical cepheid sample it is suggested that the photometric parallaxes may be underestimated by about 5%.
We used the newly commissioned 50 cm Binocular Network (50BiN) telescope at Qinghai Station of Purple Mountain Observatory (Chinese Academy of Sciences) to observe the old open cluster NGC 188 in V and R as part of a search for variable objects. Our time-series data span a total of 36 days. Radial velocity and proper-motion selection resulted in a sample of 532 genuine cluster members. Isochrone fitting was applied to the cleaned cluster sequence, yielding a distance modulus of (m - M)0V = 11.35 pm 0.10 mag and a total foreground reddening of E(V - R) = 0.062 pm 0.002 mag. Light-curve solutions were obtained for eight W Ursae Majoris eclipsing-binary systems (W UMas) and their orbital parameters were estimated. Using the latter parameters, we estimate a distance to the W UMas which is independent of the host clusters physical properties. Based on combined fits to six of the W UMas (EP Cep, EQ Cep, ES Cep, V369 Cep, and--for the first time--V370 Cep and V782 Cep), we obtain an average distance modulus of (m - M)0V = 11.31 pm 0.08 mag, which is comparable with that resulting from our isochrone fits. These six W UMas exhibit an obvious period-luminosity relation. We derive more accurate physical parameters for the W UMa systems and discuss their initial masses and ages. The former show that these W UMa systems have likely undergone angular-momentum evolution within a convective envelope (W-type evolution). The ages of the W UMa systems agree well with the clusters age.
Previous analyses of various standard candles observed by the Gaia satellite have reported statistically significant systematics in the parallaxes that have improved from $sim$250 $mu$as in the first data release (DR1) to 50--80 $mu$as in the second data release (DR2). Here we examine the parallaxes newly reported in the Gaia early third data release (EDR3) using the same sample of benchmark eclipsing binaries (EBs) we used to assess the DR1 and DR2 parallaxes. We find a mean offset of $-37pm20$ $mu$as (Gaia$-$EB), which decreases to $-15pm18$ $mu$as after applying the corrections recommended by the Gaia Mission team; global systematics in the Gaia parallaxes have clearly improved and are no longer statistically significant for the EB sample, which spans $5lesssim{G}lesssim12$ in brightness and 0.03--3 kpc in distance. We also find that the RUWE goodness-of-fit statistic reported in Gaia EDR3 is highly sensitive to unresolved companions (tertiaries in the case of our EB sample) as well as to photocenter motion of the binaries themselves. RUWE is nearly perfectly correlated ($r^2=0.82$) with photocenter motions down to $lesssim$0.1 mas, and surprisingly this correlation exists entirely within the nominal good RUWE range of 1.0--1.4. This suggests that RUWE values even slightly greater than 1.0 may signify unresolved binaries in Gaia, and that the RUWE value can serve as a quantitative predictor of the photocenter motion.
In the Gaia era, the membership analysis and parameter determination of open clusters (OCs) are more accurate. We performed a census of OCs classical Cepheids based on Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) and obtained a sample of 33 OC Cepheids fulfilling the constraints of the spatial position, proper motion, parallax and evolution state. 13 of 33 OC Cepheids are newly discovered. Among them, CM Sct is the first first-crossing Cepheids with direct evidence of evolution. DP Vel is likely a fourth- or fifth-crossing Cepheids. Based on independent distances from OCs, W_1-band period-luminosity relation of Cepheids is determined with a 3.5% accuracy: <MW1> = -(3.274 +- 0.090) log P - (-2.567 +- 0.080). The Gaia-band period-Wesenheit relation agrees well with Ripepi et al. (2019). A direct period-age relation for fundamental Cepheids are also determined based on OCs age, that is log t = -(0.638 +- 0.063) log P + (8.569 +- 0.057).
We have measured an annual parallax of the Mira variable R~Ursae~Majoris (R~UMa) with the VLBI exploration for Radio Astronomy (VERA). From the monitoring VLBI observations spanning about two years, we detected H$_2$O maser spots in the LSR velocities ranges from 37 to 42 km,s$^{-1}$. We derived an annual parallax of 1.97$pm$0.05,mas, and it gives a corresponding distance of 508$pm$13,pc. The VLBI maps revealed 72 maser spots distributed in $sim$110 au area around an expected stellar position. Circumstellar kinematics of the maser spots were also revealed by subtracting a systemic motion in the Hipparcos catalog from proper motions of each maser spots derived from our VLBI observations. Infrared photometry is also conducted to measure a $K$ band apparent magnitude, and we obtained a mean magnitude of $m_K$ = 1.19$pm$0.02,mag. Using the trigonometric distance, the $m_K$ is converted to a $K$ band absolute magnitude of $M_K = -$7.34$pm$0.06,mag. This result gives a much more accurate absolute magnitude of R~UMa than previously provided. We solved a zero-point of $M_K - log P$ relation for the Galactic Mira variables and obtained a relation of $M_K = -$3.52 $log P$ + (1.09 $pm$ 0.14). Other long period variables including red supergiants, whose distances were determined from astrometric VLBI, were also compiled to explore the different sequences of $M_K - log P$ relation.