Related papers: Asymptotic Giant Branch Variables as Extragalactic…
Context. When low and intermediate-mass stars leave the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) phase, and before they reach the Planetary Nebulae stage, they enter a very brief and rather puzzling stellar evolutionary stage named post-AGB. Aims. To…
The similarity of the absolute luminosity profiles of Type Ia supernovae (SNIe), as one kind of distance indicator, has led their use in extragalactic astronomy as secondary standard candles. In general, the empirical relationship of SNIa…
The present article is written in the wake of a recently published study of the relation between the light curves of Long Period Variables and their evolution along the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB). It introduces a pair of new parameters…
Old-aged stellar distance indicators are present in all Galactic structures (halo, bulge, disk) and in galaxies of all Hubble types and, thus, are immensely powerful tools for understanding our Universe. Here we present a comprehensive…
We have pioneered a new method for the measurement of extragalactic distances. This method uses the time-lag between variations in the short wavelength and long wavelength light from an active galactic nucleus (AGN), based on a quantitative…
We have used the adaptive optics system on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope to study a field 6 arcmin from the center of the heavily obscured elliptical galaxy Maffei 1. Our near diffraction-limited H and K' images reveal an excess…
The mass of a Cepheid is a fundamental parameter for studying the pulsation and evolution of intermediate-mass stars. But determining this variable has been a long-standing problem for decades. Detecting the companions (by spectroscopy or…
Extragalactic Cepheids are the basic rungs of the cosmic distance scale. They are excellent standard candles, although their luminosities and corresponding distance estimates can be affected by the particular properties of the host galaxy.…
Colour-M/L (mass-to-light) relations are a popular recipe to derive stellar mass in external galaxies. Stellar mass estimates often rely on near infrared (NIR) photometry, considered an optimal tracer since it is little affected by dust and…
The Galactic calibration of the period-luminosity (PL) relation for classical Cepheids is examined using trigonometric, open cluster, and pulsation parallaxes, which help establish independent versions of the relationship. The calibration…
Distant regions close to the plane of our Galaxy are largely unexplored by optical surveys as they are hidden by dust. We have used near-infrared data (that minimizes dust obscuration) from the ESO Public survey VISTA Variables of the Via…
We investigate the influence of Asymptotic Giant Branch stars on integrated colours of star clusters of ages between ~100 Myr and a few gigayears, and composition typical for the Magellanic Clouds. We use state-of-the-art stellar evolution…
We present results of a ground-based survey for Cepheid variables in NGC 4258. This galaxy plays a key role in the Extragalactic Distance Scale due to its very precise and accurate distance determination via VLBI observations of water…
We consider cosmological applications of galaxy number density correlations to be inferred from future deep and wide multi-band optical surveys. We mostly focus on very large scales as a probe of possible features in the primordial power…
We present an analysis of the many possible methods for simulating and analysing colour-magnitude diagrams, with application to studies of the field halo stellar populations of resolved galaxies. Special consideration is made to the…
We propose that a sufficiently advanced civilization may employ Cepheid variable stars as beacons to transmit all-call information throughout the galaxy and beyond. One can construct many scenarios wherein it would be desirable for such a…
Anomalous Cepheids are a rather rare family of pulsating variables preferably found in dwarf galaxies. Attempts to model these variable stars via single-star evolution scenarios still leave space for improvements to better grasp their…
Infrared spectroscopy in the mid- and far-infrared provides powerful diagnostics for studying the emission regions in active galaxies. The large variety of ionic fine structure lines can probe gas conditions in a variety of physical…
The extragalactic distance scale is perhaps the most important application of stellar distance indicators. Among these, classical Cepheids are high-accuracy standard candles that support a $1.4\%$ measurement of Hubble's constant, $H_0$.…
We calculate as a function of orbital distance, mass, and age the theoretical spectra and orbit-averaged planet/star flux ratios for representative wide-separation extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) in the optical, near-infrared, and…