English

Contact Binary Stars as Standard Candles

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

The orbital period is a measure of the size of a contact binary star, and can be combined with color to predict its luminosity to a fraction of stellar magnitude. This novel application of contact binary systems currently has limitations that we describe in the text but is potentially capable of providing a reasonable means of estimating distances to stellar systems at the level comparable to that achievable for Cepheids or other pulsating stars.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9508043,
  title  = {Contact Binary Stars as Standard Candles},
  author = {Slavek M. Rucinski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9508043},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

review presented at Binaries in Clusters meeting, Calgary, Alberta, June 19-23, 1995. uufiles compressed Post-Script text and 4 figures. Subject to final editing and referee approval