An instrument for optimizing a spaceborne interferometer Application to calibrating the Cepheid distance scale

Details An instrument for optimizing a spaceborne interferometer Application to calibrating the Cepheid distance scale An instrument for optimizing a spaceborne interferometer Application to calibrating the Cepheid distance scale

Mar 1987

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1987aj.....93..760m&link_type=abstract

Astronomical Journal (ISSN 0004-6256), vol. 93, March 1987, p. 760-767. Research supported by the Applied Research Corp.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

5

Astrometry, Cepheid Variables, Distance Measuring Equipment, Double Stars, Interferometry, Spaceborne Astronomy, B Stars, Magellanic Clouds, Point Sources, Separation, Stellar Mass, Supergiant Stars

Scientific paper

It is demonstrated that an idealized version of an instrument specifically designed to resolve double stars with different colors can increase the resolving power of a conventional interferometer by more than a factor of 30, and may enable a 5 m baseline interferometer to provide useful measurements of point sources separated by only a few times 10 to the -5th arcsec. An obvious application for such a device is to measure the angular separations of double-lined spectroscopic binary Cepheids. In combination with radial velocities, the angle measurements provided by a spaceborne interferometer with a baseline of only 5 m can determine the distances to approximately 40 Milky Way Cepheids from Newton's laws and Euclidean geometry. This number should be adequate to calibrate the period-luminosity relationship directly - which amounts to bypassing two rungs of the cosmic distance ladder. The instrument may also be able to resolve about 25 M supergiant +B star systems in the LMC - thereby placing the large cloud on a fundamental distance scale.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

An instrument for optimizing a spaceborne interferometer Application to calibrating the Cepheid distance scale does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with An instrument for optimizing a spaceborne interferometer Application to calibrating the Cepheid distance scale, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and An instrument for optimizing a spaceborne interferometer Application to calibrating the Cepheid distance scale will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1452467