Related papers: Improving the mass determination of Galactic Cephe…

Recently, a double-lined binary (SB2) classical Cepheid, OGLE-LMC-CEP-1347, was discovered, with the orbital period (P$_{\rm orb} = 59$ days) five times shorter than of any binary Cepheid known before. The expected mass of the Cepheid was…

In 2005, interferometric observations with VLTI/VINCI and CHARA/FLUOR revealed the existence of a circumstellar envelope (CSE) around some Cepheids. This surrounding material is particularly interesting for two reasons: it could have an…

A galaxy's metallicity and its relation to stellar mass encode the history of gas accretion, star formation, and outflows within cosmic ecosystems. We present new constraints on the low-mass end of the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) at…

We present a method of determining lower limits on the masses of pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars and so constraining the PMS evolutionary tracks. This method uses the red-shifted absorption feature observed in some emission-line profiles of T…

[Abridged] We studied the size-surface brightness and the size-mass relations of a sample of 16 cluster elliptical galaxies in the mass range 10^{10}-2x10^{11} M_sun which were morphologically selected in the cluster RDCS J0848+4453 at…

We accurately determine a new Cepheid distance to M101 (NGC 5457) using archival HST/ACS V and I time series photometry of two fields within the galaxy. We make a slight modification to the ISIS image subtraction package to obtain optimal…

We point out that the absolute magnitude of the Galactic Cepheids, which have been used for local calibrations for Cepheid period-luminosity relation, shows an unexpectedly large metal abundance effect. This indicates that either Cepheids…

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 assess the systematic uncertainties in stellar evolutionary calculations for low- to intermediate-mass, main-sequence stars. We compare published stellar tracks from several different evolution codes with our own tracks computed using…

Classical Cepheids are primary distance indicators playing a fundamental role in the calibration of the extragalactic distance scale. The possible dependence of their characteristic Period-Luminosity (PL) relation on chemical composition is…

We study the kinematics of a sample of classical Cepheids younger than 120 Myr. For these stars, the estimates of distances taken from Skowron et al., which are based on the period-luminosity relation, and the line-of-sight velocities and…

Classical Cepheids (CCs) have long been considered excellent tracers of the chemical evolution of the Milky Way's young disk. We present a homogeneous, NLTE spectroscopic analysis of 401 Galactic CCs, based on 1,351 high-resolution optical…

We performed a new and accurate fit of light and radial velocity curves of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) Cepheid --OGLE-LMC-CEP-0227-- belonging to a detached double-lined eclipsing binary system. We computed several sets of nonlinear,…

The rationale behind recent calibrations of the Cepheid PL relation using the Wesenheit formulation is reviewed and reanalyzed, and it is shown that recent conclusions regarding a possible change in slope of the PL relation for short-period…

Up-to-date data on 2214 classical Cepheids have been used. The model of an exponential matter density distribution in the Galactic thin disk has been applied. New estimates of the radial disk scale length $h_R,$ the distance of the Sun from…

We present an analysis of the period distribution of $\sim 1800$ Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud, based on data obtained by the MACHO microlensing experiment and on a previous catalogue by Payne-Gaposchkin. Using stellar evolution…

It is well known that the mere location of a Beat Cepheid model in a Period Ratio \vs Period diagram (Petersen diagram) puts constraints on its metallicity Z. But these bounds are sensitive to the mixture of elements that are lumped into…

Masses and radii of transiting brown dwarfs can be measured directly in contrast to isolated field brown dwarfs, whose mass and radius inferences are model dependent. Therefore, transiting brown dwarfs are a testbed for the interior and…

We briefly review the main problems related to the computation of the evolution of intermediate-mass stars: the treatment of turbulent convection and the occurrence of blue loops during the core He-burning phase. It is shown that, in order…

Several authors have reported that the dynamical masses of massive compact galaxies ($M_\star \gtrsim 10^{11} \ \mathrm{M_\odot}$, $r_\mathrm{e} \sim 1 \ \mathrm{kpc}$), computed as $M_\mathrm{dyn} = 5.0 \ \sigma_\mathrm{e}^2 r_\mathrm{e} /…