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The distance to NGC 6397 by M-subdwarf main-sequence fitting
Recent years have seen a substantial improvement both in photometry of low
luminosity stars in globular clusters and in modelling the stellar atmospheres
of late-type dwarfs. We build on these observational and theoretical advances
in undertaking the first determination of the distance to a globular cluster by
main-sequence fitting using stars on the lower main sequence. The calibrating
stars are extreme M subdwarfs, as classified by Gizis (1997), with parallaxes
measured to a precision of better than 10%. Matching against King et al's
(1998) deep (V, (V-I)) photometry of NGC 6397, and adopting E_{B-V}=0.18 mag,
we derive a true distance modulus of 12.13 +- 0.15 mag for the cluster. This
compares with (m-M)_0=12.24 +- 0.1 derived through conventional main-sequence
fitting in the (V, (B-V)) plane. Allowing for intrinsic differences due to
chemical composition, we derive a relative distance modulus of delta
(m-M)_0=2.58 mag between NGC 6397 and the fiducial metal-poor cluster M92. We
extend this calibration to other metal-poor clusters, and examine the resulting
RR Lyrae (M_V, [Fe/H]) relation.Comment: 19 pages, AASTeX, to appear in the December 1998 A
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