English

Predicting Stellar Angular Sizes

Astrophysics 2008-11-26 v2

Abstract

Reliable prediction of stellar diameters, particularly angular diameters, is a useful and necessary tool for the increasing number of milliarcsecond resolution studies being carried out in the astronomical community. A new and accurate technique of predicting angular sizes is presented for main sequence stars, giant and supergiant stars, and for more evolved sources such as carbon stars and Mira variables. This technique uses observed KK and either VV or BB broad-band photometry to predict V=0 or B=0 zero magnitude angular sizes, which are then readily scaled to the apparent angular sizes with the VV or BB photometry. The spread in the relationship is 2.2% for main sequence stars; for giant and supergiant stars, 11-12%; and for evolved sources, results are at the 20-26% level. Compared to other simple predictions of angular size, such as linear radius-distance methods or black-body estimates, zero magnitude angular size predictions can provide apparent angular sizes with errors that are 2 to 5 times smaller.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9904295,
  title  = {Predicting Stellar Angular Sizes},
  author = {G. T. van Belle},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9904295},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

28 pages, 4 figures, accepted by PASP