Clustering of Local Group distances: publication bias or correlated
  measurements? I. The Large Magellanic Cloud
  The distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) represents a key local rung
of the extragalactic distance ladder. Yet, the galaxy's distance modulus has
long been an issue of contention, in particular in view of claims that most
newly determined distance moduli cluster tightly - and with a small spread -
around the "canonical" distance modulus, (m-M)_0 = 18.50 mag. We compiled 233
separate LMC distance determinations published between 1990 and 2013. Our
analysis of the individual distance moduli, as well as of their two-year means
and standard deviations resulting from this largest data set of LMC distance
moduli available to date, focuses specifically on Cepheid and RR Lyrae
variable-star tracer populations, as well as on distance estimates based on
features in the observational Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. We conclude that
strong publication bias is unlikely to have been the main driver of the
majority of published LMC distance moduli. However, for a given distance
tracer, the body of publications leading to the tightly clustered distances is
based on highly non-independent tracer samples and analysis methods, hence
leading to significant correlations among the LMC distances reported in
subsequent articles. Based on a careful, weighted combination, in a statistical
sense, of the main stellar population tracers, we recommend that a slightly
adjusted canonical distance modulus of (m-M)_0 = 18.49 +- 0.09 mag be used for
all practical purposes that require a general distance scale without the need
for accuracies of better than a few percent.
