Small Telescopes as Discovery Machines for Fundamental Stellar Astrophysics and for Student Training

Details Small Telescopes as Discovery Machines for Fundamental Stellar Astrophysics and for Student Training Small Telescopes as Discovery Machines for Fundamental Stellar Astrophysics and for Student Training

May 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21820405s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #204.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

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Scientific paper

We highlight the results of an ongoing program using SMARTS to discover and characterize eclipsing binary star systems. These systems serve as fundamental benchmarks for tests of theoretical stellar evolution models and as calibrators of basic stellar relationships, such as the mass-radius-metallicity relationship. These theoretical models and empirical relationships are, in turn, central to a very broad range of astrophysical problems, including measurement of exoplanet masses and radii, determination of stellar initial mass functions, age-dating of stellar populations, and many others. The SMARTS wide-field imagers are used to first discover the eclipsing binaries from long-term photometric monitoring, and are then used to measure precise, high-cadence multi-band light curves of the discovered systems. For bright systems, radial-velocity follow-up is done with the SMARTS 1.5m echelle, with which we achieve radial-velocity precision of better than 100 m/s on timescales of ˜1 month without the use of an iodine cell. For faint systems and/or those requiring radial-velocity follow-up in the infrared, we use community time on the system of large telescopes (e.g. Gemini, Keck TSIP time, etc). Finally, observing programs like this one have proven invaluable for student training, and we highlight the role of SMARTS as part of the NSF-funded REU programs at Vanderbilt and Fisk, with an emphasis on broadening participation of underrepresented groups.

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