2002ApJ...574..771R

We present results from a detailed analysis of a third eclipsing binary (EB) system in the Large Magellanic Cloud, EROS 1044 (∼B2 IV-V+∼B2 III-IV). Our study combines the ``classical'' EB study of light and radial velocity curves with detailed modeling of the observed spectral energy distribution and yields an essentially complete picture of the stellar properties of the system and a determination of its distance. The observational data exploited include optical photometry, space-based UV spectroscopy, and UV/optical spectrophotometry. The advantages of our technique include numerous consistency checks and, in the case of the distance determinations, the absence of zero-point uncertainties and adjustable parameters. We find the EROS 1044 system to consist of a pair of normal, mildly evolved ∼21,000 K stars, whose derived properties are consistent with stellar evolution calculations. The distance to the system is 47.5±1.8 kpc. We discuss the implications of our results for three EB systems (HV 2274, HV 982, and EROS 1044) on the general distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud.