Related papers: AGB Variables as Distance Indicators
Contact binaries can be used for distance determinations of stellar systems. They are easy to discover and identify and are very abundant among solar-type stars, particularly for M_V > +3. The period - luminosity - colour (PLC) relations…
The outflows of oxygen-rich asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars are thought to be driven by radiation pressure by photon scattering on grains with sizes of tenths of microns. The details of the formation of dust in the extended atmospheres…
We discuss recent theoretical and empirical results concerning cosmic distances and discuss the problems affecting the Cepheid and the RR Lyrae distance scales. In particular, we outline the key role that first overtone Cepheids can play to…
The period-luminosity (PL) relation for Galactic Cepheids is derived with recent independent distance measurements taken from literature. Our PL relation confirms the work of Tammann et al. (2003), which showed that the Galactic Cepheids…
RR Lyrae stars are excellent tracers of the old population II due to their period-luminosity (PL) and period-luminosity-metallicity (PLZ) relations. While these relations have been investigated in detail in many photometric bands, there are…
Atmospheres of evolved AGB stars are heavily affected by pulsation, dust formation and mass loss, and they can become very extended. Time series of observed high-resolution spectra proved to be a useful tool to study atmospheric dynamics…
Context: Miras are long-period variables thought to be in the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase of evolution. In about one percent of known Miras, the pulsation period is changing. It has been speculated that this changing period is the…
Period-luminosity relations of long period variables (LPVs) are a powerful tool to map the distances of stars in our galaxy, and are typically calibrated using stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Recent results demonstrated that…
Binary interactions are commonplace among massive stars, giving rise observed phenomena such as X-ray binaries, stripped stars & supernovae, and gravitational-wave sources. The multiplicity properties of massive stars thus represent a…
We report the results of a near-infrared survey for long-period variables in a field of view of 20 arcmin by 30 arcmin towards the Galactic Centre (GC). We have detected 1364 variables, of which 348 are identified with those reported in…
The Galactic kinematics of Mira variables have been studied using infrared photometry, radial velocities, and Hipparcos parallaxes and proper motions. For Miras in the period range 145 to 200 days (probably corresponding to [Fe/H] in the…
We derive the formulae for the time variation of the gravitational "constant" G and of the fine structure "constant" \alpha in various models with extra dimensions and analyze their consistency with the available observational data for…
There is growing observational evidence that the irregular changes in the light curves of certain variable stars might be due to deterministic chaos. Supporting these conclusions, several simple models of non-linear oscillators have been…
We use the eight year light-curve database from the MACHO (MAssive Compact Halo Objects) project together with infrared colors and magnitudes from 2MASS (the Two Micron All Sky Survey) to identify a sample of 22,000 long period variables in…
A new analysis of a sample of visual light curves of Mira variables is presented. The curves cover the past four decades and are selected from the AAVSO database as including a very large number of high-density and high-quality…
We present year-long, near-infrared Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 observations of Mira variables in the water megamaser host galaxy NGC 4258. Miras are AGB variables that can be divided into oxygen- (O-) and carbon- (C-) rich subclasses.…
Pulsation models are crucial for the interpretation of spectrophotometric and interferometric observations of Mira variables. Comparing predicted and observed spectra is one way of establishing the validity of such models. In this paper, we…
We study the validity of cosmic distance duality relation between angular diameter and luminosity distances. To test this duality relation we use the latest Union2 Supernovae Type Ia (SNe Ia) data for estimating the luminosity distance. The…
Optical radial velocities have been measured for 38 C-type Mira variables. These data together with others in the literature are used to study the differences between optical and CO mm observations for C-Miras and the necessary corrections…
Based on the largest catalogs currently available, comprising 6090 contact binaries (CBs) and 2167 open clusters, we determine the near-infrared $JHK_{\rm s}$ CB period--luminosity (PL) relations, for the first time achieving the low levels…