On the use of field RR Lyrae as Galactic probes

Abstract

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will start operations in 2025. During its first two years, too few visits per target per band will be available, meaning that the mean magnitude measurements of variable stars will not be precise and thus standard candles such as RR Lyrae (RRL) will not be usable. Light curve templates (LCTs) can be adopted to estimate the mean magnitude of a variable star with a few magnitude measurements, provided that their period (plus the amplitude and reference epoch, depending on how the LCT is applied) is known. The LSST will provide precise RRL periods within the first six months, enabling exploitation of RRLs if LCTs are available. We aim to build LCTs in the LSST bands to enhance the early science with LSST. Using them will provide a one- to two-year advantage with respect to the classical approach concerning distance measurements. We collected $gri$-band data from the ZTF survey and $z$-band data from DECam to build the LCTs of RRLs. We also adopted synthetic $griz$ band data in the LSST system from pulsation models, plus SDSS and OGLE photometry, inspecting the light amplitude ratios in different photometric systems to provide useful conversions to apply the LCTs. We have built LCTs of RRLs in the $griz$ bands of the LSST photometric system; for the $z$ band, we could build only fundamental mode RRL LCTs. We quantitatively demonstrated that LCTs built with ZTF and DECam data can be adopted on the LSST photometric system. The LCTs will decrease the uncertainty on distance estimates of RRLs by a factor of at least two with respect to a simple average of the available measurements. Finally, within our tests, we have found a brand new behavior of amplitude ratios in the Large Magellanic Cloud.