English

Using Limb-Darkening to Measure the Masses of Red Giants

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2010-11-22 v1

Abstract

We present a novel method for measuring the masses of evolved stars from their limb-darkening observations parameterized as a linear-plus-square-root function with two coefficients. The coefficients of the law are related to integrated moments of the intensity and carry information about the extension of the stellar atmosphere, which is correlated to the ratio of the stellar radius to mass, R/M. Here, we show why the limb-darkening law is related to the R/M, and apply this result to limb-darkening observations of the microlensing event EROS-BLG-2000-5.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1011.4387,
  title  = {Using Limb-Darkening to Measure the Masses of Red Giants},
  author = {Hilding R. Neilson and John B. Lester},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1011.4387},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

2 pages, 1 figure, To appear in the proceedings of Why Galaxies Care About AGB stars II