Related papers: Basic stellar observables
Direct determination of fundamental stellar parameters has many profound and wide-ranging impacts throughout astrophysics. These determinations are rooted in high angular resolution observations. In particular, as long-baseline optical…
In this paper we present and analyse determinations of effective temperatures of planet-hosting stars using infrared (IR) photometry. One of our goals is the comparison with spectroscopic temperatures to evaluate the presence of systematic…
Studies of molecular clouds and young stars near the sun have provided invaluable insights into the process of star formation. Indeed, much of our physical understanding of this topic has been derived from such studies. Perhaps the two most…
The mass and chemical composition of a star are the primary determinants of its basic physical properties--radius, temperature, luminosity--and how those properties evolve with time. Thus, two stars born at the same time, from the same…
We discuss the expected properties of the first stellar generations in the Universe. We find that it is possible to discern truly primordial populations from the next generation of stars by measuring the metallicity of high-z star forming…
With planets orbiting stars, a planetary mass function should not be seen as a low-mass extension of the stellar mass function, but a proper formalism needs to take care of the fact that the statistical properties of planet populations are…
Evolved stars dominate galactic spectra, enrich the galactic medium, expand to change their planetary systems, eject winds of a complex nature, produce spectacular nebulae and illuminate them, and transfer material between binary…
We present in this paper a new three-dimensional galaxy classification system designed to account for the diversity of galaxy properties in the nearby universe. To construct this system we statistically analyse a sample of >22,000 galaxies…
We present stellar properties (mass, age, radius, distances) of 57 stars from a seismic inference using full-length data sets from Kepler. These stars comprise active stars, planet-hosts, solar-analogs, and binary systems. We validate the…
The Hipparcos mission has made it possible to constrain the positions of nearby field stars in the colour-magnitude diagram with very high accuracy. These positions can be compared with the predictions of stellar evolutionary calculations…
This pedagogical document about stellar photometry - aimed at those for whom astronomical arcana seem arcane - endeavours to explain the concepts of magnitudes, color indices, absolute magnitudes, distance moduli, extinctions, attenuations,…
Much progress has been achieved in the age-dating of old stellar systems, and even of individual stars in the field, in the more than sixty years since the evolution of low-mass stars was first correctly described. In this paper, I provide…
Spectral analysis is a powerful tool to investigate stellar properties and it has been widely used for decades now. However, the methods considered to perform this kind of analysis are mostly based on iteration among a few diagnostic lines…
This article gives an overview of the constitution, physical conditions and observables of dust in the interstellar medium of nearby galaxies. We first review the macroscopic, spatial distribution of dust in these objects, and its…
The presence of dark matter has been ascertained through a wealth of astrophysical and cosmological phenomena and its nature is a central puzzle in modern science. Elementary particles stand as the most compelling explanation. They have…
Cosmological measurements of the radiation density in the early universe can be used as a sensitive probe of physics beyond the standard model. Observations of primordial light element abundances have long been used to place non-trivial…
The determination of stellar populations of galaxies are important for studying the formation and evolution of galaxies, because all galaxies contain many stars and they evolve with galaxies. Spectra data are usually used to determine the…
Significant advances in the discovery and characterization of the planetary systems of nearby stars can be accomplished with a moderate aperture high performance coronagraphic space mission that could be started in the next decade. Its…
We briefly review some constraints (Owing to the limited number of pages of present review, only a sub-sample of the topics discussed during the talk are briefly summarized. For the interested readers we are pleased to send them upon…
Accurately determining the properties of stars is of prime importance for characterizing stellar populations in our Galaxy. The field of asteroseismology has been thought to be particularly successful in such an endeavor for stars in…