A SHORT-DISTANCE TO THE LARGE-MAGELLANIC-CLOUD WITH THE HIPPARCOS CALIBRATED RED CLUMP STARS

Following an approach developed by Paczynski & Stanek, we derive a dis tance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) by comparing red clump stars from the Hipparcos catalog with the red clump stars observed in two f ields in the LMC that were selected from the ongoing photometric surve y of the Magellanic Clouds to lie in low-extinction regions. The use o f red clump stars allows a single step determination of the distance m odulus to the LMC, mu(0,LMC) = 18.065 +/- 0.031 +/- 0.09 mag (statisti cal plus systematic error), and the corresponding distance, R-LMC = 41 .02 +/- 0.59 +/- 1.74 kpc. This measurement is in excellent agreement with the recent determination by Udalski et al., also based on the red clump stars, but is similar to 0.4 mag smaller than the generally acc epted value of mu(0,LMC) = 18.50 +/- 0.15 mag, We discuss possible rea sons for this discrepancy and how it can be resolved.