RR Lyrae-based Distances for 39 Nearby Dwarf Galaxies Calibrated to Gaia eDR3

Understand

We provide uniform RR Lyrae-based distances to 39 dwarf galaxies in and around the Local Group.

• We determine distances based on a Bayesian hierarchical model that uses periods and magnitudes of published RR Lyrae in dwarf galaxies and is anchored to well-studied Milky Way (MW) RR Lyrae with spectroscopic metallicities and Gaia eDR3 parallaxes.
• Gaia eDR3 parallaxes for the anchor sample are a factor of 2, on average, more precise than DR2 parallaxes, and allow for a much better constrained period-luminosity-metallicity relation.
• While $\sim75$% of our distances are within 1-$\sigma$ of recent literature RR Lyrae distances, our distances are also $\sim2$-$3$ times more precise than literature distances, on average.