Metallicity estimations of MW, SMC, and LMC classical Cepheids from the shape of the V- and I-band light curves

Abstract

Context. Estimating the metallicity of classical Cepheids is of prime importance for studying metallicity effects on stellar evolution and the chemical evolution of galaxies, as well as on the period–luminosity relation used on the extragalactic distance scale. Aims. Our first aim is to establish new empirical relations for estimating the iron content of classical Cepheids for short and long periods based on Fourier parameters from the V- and I-band light curves. We go on to apply these relations to Cepheids from data on the Milky Way (MW) as well as the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds (SMC and LMC) from the literature. Methods. We retrieved the metallicities of 586 fundamental-mode Cepheids from spectroscopic determinations in the literature and we found well-sampled light curves for 545 of them in different V-band catalogs. We then described the shape of these light curves by applying a Fourier decomposition and we fit the empirical relations between the Fourier parameters and the spectroscopic metallicities individually, for short-period (2.5 < P < 6.3 days) and long-period Cepheids (12 < P < 40 days). We verified the accuracy of these relations by applying them to V-band light curves of Cepheids from the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds and comparing these derived metallicities to literature values. We calibrated new interrelations of Fourier parameters to convert these empirical relations into the I band. We then used these I-band relations to derive the metallicity of fundamental-mode Cepheids from OGLE-IV for MW, SMC, and LMC (486, 695, and 1697 stars, respectively). Finally, we mapped the metallicity distribution in these galaxies for the purpose of investigating potential applications in galactic archeology. Results. For short-period Cepheids, our best fit is given for a relation based on explicit amplitude terms A1 and A2 of the first and second harmonic, respectively. In the V and I bands, these empirical relations are found with an intrinsic scatter (rms) of 0.12 dex. This relation performs well for estimations of [Fe/H] between about −0.5 and 0.1 dex, but it remains uncertain outside this range because of the lack of a spectroscopic metallicity required for the calibration. For long-period Cepheids, we found a metallicity dependence on the Fourier parameters A1, ϕ21, and R41. We found an intrinsic scatter of 0.25 dex when using this relation. The empirical relations in the V and I bands allow us to derive the mean metallicity of a sample of MW, SMC, and LMC Cepheids that is in agreement with literature values within 1σ. We also show that these relations are precise enough to reconstruct the radial metallicity gradients within the MW from OGLE data. Conclusions. The empirical relations in the V and I bands that are calibrated in this work for short- and long-period Cepheids provide a useful new tool for estimating the metallicity of Cepheids that are not accessible via spectroscopy. The calibration can be improved with further high-resolution spectroscopic observations of metal-poor Cepheids and homogeneous photometries in the V and I bands.