The Near-Infrared Tip of the Red Giant Branch. II. An Absolute
  Calibration in the Large Magellanic Cloud
  We present a new empirical \(JHK\) absolute calibration of the tip of the red
giant branch (TRGB) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We use published data
from the extensive \emph{Near-Infrared Synoptic Survey} containing 3.5 million
stars, of which 65,000 are red giants that fall within one magnitude of the
TRGB. Adopting the TRGB slopes from a companion study of the isolated dwarf
galaxy IC\,1613 as well as an LMC distance modulus of \(\mu_0 = \)~18.49~mag
from (geometric) detached eclipsing binaries, we derive absolute \(JHK\)
zero-points for the near-infrared TRGB. For comparison with measurements in the
bar alone, we apply the calibrated \(JHK\) TRGB to a 500 deg\textsuperscript{2}
area of the 2MASS survey. The TRGB reveals the 3-dimensional structure of the
LMC with a tilt in the direction perpendicular to the major axis of the bar, in
agreement with previous studies.
