Period-luminosity relations for red supergiant variables - I. The calibration

We present CCD photometry of red supergiant long-period variables (LPVs) in the Per OB1 association, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and M33. The photometry was obtained in the Kron-Cousins R and I bandpasses and in a narrow bandpass (lambda(0) = 8250 Angstrom, FWHM = 300 Angstrom) chosen to avoid TiO bands in the spectral energy distribution of the LPVs. Because the strength of the TiO bands varies greatly with temperature, which varies with the phase of an LPV, avoiding TiO reduces the amplitude of the photometric variations seen in LPVs. The result is a lower dispersion and a well defined period-luminosity (PL) relation. For the LMC sample we find an rms dispersion of 0.27 mag in the narrow-band PL relation and slightly larger dispersions for the LPVs in Per OB1 and M33. This dispersion is comparable to that of the Cepheid PL relation at similar wavelengths. Adopting a distance modulus of 18.5 +/- 0.1 mag for the LMC, we obtain distance moduli of 11.68 +/- 0.15 mag for Per OB1 and 24.85 +/- 0.13 mag for M33. These distances agree well with those based on main sequence fitting for Per OB1 and the Cepheid distance for M33. Since LPVs are similar to 5 times more common than Cepheids and have a well defined PL relation, LPVs provide a promising method for estimating Galactic and extra galactic distances.