Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
104: 599-662, 1992 August
For a PDF version of the article, click
here.
A CRITICAL REVIEW OF SELECTED TECHNIQUES FOR MEASURING EXTRAGALACTIC
DISTANCES
George H. Jacoby
Kitt Peak National
Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatories, P.O. Box
26732, Tucson, Arizona 85726
Electronic mail:
gjacoby@noao.edu
David Branch
Department of Physics and
Astronomy, University of
Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019
Electronic mail:
branch@phyast.nhn.uoknor.edu
Robin Ciardullo
Department of
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Penn State University,
525 Davey Lab, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802
Electronic mail:
rbc@astro.psu.edu
Roger L. Davies
Department of Physics, Astrophysics Group,
Oxford University,
Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, England
Electronic mail:
rld@astro.ox.ac.uk
William E. Harris
Department of
Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University,
Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada
Electronic mail:
harris@physun.physics.mcmaster.ca
Michael J. Pierce
Dominion
Astrophysical Observatory,
Current address: Kitt
Peak National Observatory, P.O. Box 26732, Tucson,
Arizona, 85726
Electronic mail: mpierce@noao.edu
Christopher J. Pritchet
Department of Physics
and Astronomy, University of Victoria,
P.O.B. 3055, Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 3P6, Canada
Electronic mail:
pritchet@uvphys.bitnet
John L. Tonry
Department of Physics, Massachusettes Institute of Technology,
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139
Electronic mail:
jt@antares.mit.edu
Douglas L. Welch
Department of
Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University,
Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada
Electronic mail:
welch@physun.physics.mcmaster.ca
ABSTRACT. We review seven of the most reliable techniques used for
deriving distances to galaxies as far away as 100 Mpc: globular cluster
luminosity functions (GCLF), novae, Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia),
HI-line width relations, planetary nebula luminosity functions (PNLF),
surface brightness fluctuations (SBF),
and fundamental plane relationships for elliptical galaxies
(Dn -
). In addition, we examine the
use of Cepheid variables since
these serve to set zero points for most of the methods. We pay
particular attention to the uncertainties inherent in these methods,
both internal and external. We then test these uncertainties by comparing
distances derived with each technique to distances derived from surface
brightness fluctuations. We find that there are small systematic offsets
between the PNLF, GCLF, and SBF methods, with the PNLF and GCLF distances
being on average 6% and 13% larger than those of the SBF method. The
dispersion between the PNLF and SBF distances is 8%; the GCLF-SBF
dispersion is 16%, the SN Ia-SBF dispersion is 28%, the
Dn--SBF
dispersion is 26%, and the Tully-Fisher-SBF dispersion
is 32%. The latter value drops to 14%, however, when one considers
only well mixed groups, suggesting that the spiral galaxies measured with
Tully-Fisher are not always spatially coincident with the groups'
elliptical galaxies. In the mean, all the methods agree extremely well.
We also present a summary of distances to the Virgo Cluster. Weighted
and unweighted averages of the 7 methods yield Virgo distances of 16.0
± 1.7 and 17.6 ± 2.2 Mpc, respectively. The overlap among all
the indicators is well within the expected accuracies of the methods,
thus removing any evidence for a distance scale controversy. Using the
weighted or unweighted Virgo distances to bootstrap to the Coma
Cluster, we find the Hubble constant to be either 80 ± 11 or 73
± 11 km s-1 Mpc-1, respectively.
