Globular Cluster Distances from RR Lyrae Stars

Abstract

The most common methods to derive the distance to globular clusters using RR Lyrae variables are reviewed, with a special attention to those that have experienced significant improvement in the past few years. From the weighted average of these most recent determinations the absolute magnitude of the RR Lyrae stars at [Fe/H]=-1.5 is Mv = 0.59 +/- 0.03 mag, corresponding to a distance modulus for the LMC (m-M)o = 18.48 +/- 0.05.

19 pages, 2 Postscript figures, Latex, uses svmult.cls. To be published in ``Stellar Candles'', Lecture Notes in Physics (http://link.springer.de/series/lnpp) Text update in Sect. 2.2, 2.4 and Table 2