2,589 research outputs found
The Gould's Belt distance survey
Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations can provide the
position of compact radio sources with an accuracy of order 50
micro-arcseconds. This is sufficient to measure the trigonometric parallax and
proper motions of any object within 500 pc of the Sun to better than a few
percent. Because they are magnetically active, young stars are often associated
with compact radio emission detectable using VLBI techniques. Here we will show
how VLBI observations have already constrained the distance to the most often
studied nearby regions of star-formation (Taurus, Ophiuchus, Orion, etc.) and
have started to provide information on their internal structure and kinematics.
We will then briefly describe a large project (called The Gould's Belt Distance
Survey) designed to provide a detailed view of star-formation in the Solar
neighborhood using VLBI observations.Comment: To be published in the Revista Mexicana de Astronomia y Astrofisica
(Serie de Conferencias
The circumbinary disk of HD 98800B: Evidence for disk warping
The quadruple young stellar system HD 98800 consists of two spectroscopic binary pairs with a circumbinary disk around the B component. Recent work by Boden and collaborators using infrared interferometry and radial velocity data resulted in a determination of the physical orbit for HD 98800B. We use the resulting inclination of the binary and the measured extinction toward the B component stars to constrain the distribution of circumbinary material. Although a standard optically and geometrically thick disk model can reproduce the spectral energy distribution, it cannot account for the observed extinction if the binary and the disk are coplanar. We next constructed a dynamical model to investigate the influence of the A component, which is not in the BaâBb orbital plane, on the B disk. We find that these interactions have a substantial impact on the inclination of the B circumbinary disk with respect to the BaâBb orbital plane. The resulting warp would be sufficient to place material into the line of sight and the noncoplanar disk orientation may also cause the upper layers of the disk to intersect the line of sight if the disk is geometrically thick. These simulations also support that the dynamics of the BaâBb orbit clear the inner region to a radius of~3 AU. We then discuss whether the somewhat unusual properties of the HD 98800B disk are consistent with material remnant from the star formation process or with more recent creation by collisions from larger bodies
Palomar Testbed Interferometer: update
The Palomar Testbed Interferometer is a long-baseline near- infrared interferometer operating at Palomar Observatory, CA. The interferometer has a maximum baseline of 110 m, 40-cm collecting apertures, and active fringe tracking. It also incorporates a dual-star architecture to enable cophasing and narrow-angle astrometry.
We will discuss recent system improvements and engineering results. These include upgrades to allow for longer coherent integration times, H band operation, and cophasing using delay line feedforward. Recent engineering tests of astrometry in dual-star mode have shown a night-to-night repeatability of 100 ”as on a bright test target. Several new observation planning tools have been developed, and data reduction tools have been automated to allow fully pipelined nightly reductions and archiving
Radial Structure in the TW Hya Circumstellar Disk
We present new near-infrared interferometric data from the CHARA array and the Keck Interferometer on the circumstellar disk of the young star, TW Hya, a proposed "transition disk." We use these data, as well as previously published, spatially resolved data at 10 ÎŒm and 7 mm, to constrain disk models based on a standard flared disk structure. We find that we can match the interferometry data sets and the overall spectral energy distribution with a three-component model, which combines elements at spatial scales proposed by previous studies: optically thin, emission nearest the star, an inner optically thick ring of emission at roughly 0.5 AU followed by an opacity gap and, finally, an outer optically thick disk starting at ~4 AU. The model demonstrates that the constraints imposed by the spatially resolved data can be met with a physically plausible disk but this requires a disk containing not only an inner gap in the optically thick disk as previously suggested, but also a gap between the inner and outer optically thick disks. Our model is consistent with the suggestion by Calvet et al. of a planet with an orbital radius of a few AU. We discuss the implications of an opacity gap within the optically thick disk
A Coverage Criterion for Spaced Seeds and its Applications to Support Vector Machine String Kernels and k-Mer Distances
Spaced seeds have been recently shown to not only detect more alignments, but
also to give a more accurate measure of phylogenetic distances (Boden et al.,
2013, Horwege et al., 2014, Leimeister et al., 2014), and to provide a lower
misclassification rate when used with Support Vector Machines (SVMs) (On-odera
and Shibuya, 2013), We confirm by independent experiments these two results,
and propose in this article to use a coverage criterion (Benson and Mak, 2008,
Martin, 2013, Martin and No{\'e}, 2014), to measure the seed efficiency in both
cases in order to design better seed patterns. We show first how this coverage
criterion can be directly measured by a full automaton-based approach. We then
illustrate how this criterion performs when compared with two other criteria
frequently used, namely the single-hit and multiple-hit criteria, through
correlation coefficients with the correct classification/the true distance. At
the end, for alignment-free distances, we propose an extension by adopting the
coverage criterion, show how it performs, and indicate how it can be
efficiently computed.Comment: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cmb.2014.017
Measurement of the Surface Gravity of Boo
Direct angular size measurements of the G0IV subgiant Boo from the
Palomar Testbed Interferometer are presented, with limb-darkened angular size
of mas, which indicate a linear
radius of . A bolometric flux estimate of erg cms is computed, which indicates
an effective temperature of K and luminosity of for this object. Similar data are established for a check
star, HD 121860. The Boo results are compared to, and confirm, similar
parameters established by the {\it MOST} asteroseismology satellite. In
conjunction with the mass estimate from the {\it MOST} investigation, a surface
gravity of [cm s] is established for
Boo.Comment: To appear in March 1, 2007 ApJ v657 n
Palomar testbed interferometer status report
We discuss recent work from the Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI), including science results and system improvements. In the past two years PTI has been used to observe a wide range of scientifically interesting sources, including binaries, Cepheids and Miras. In addition PTI has been used to observe departures from spherical symmetry in several stars. Recent system improvements incude a new low read-noise camera based on a HAWAII infrared array, routine opteration in two baselines, and operation in the J band. Future developments include an upgrade to three-aperture combination and closure phase measurements, and double-Fourier interferometry
The Gould's Belt Distances Survey (GOBELINS). V. Distances and Kinematics of the Perseus molecular cloud
We derive the distance and structure of the Perseus molecular cloud by
combining trigonometric parallaxes from Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA)
observations, taken as part of the GOBELINS survey, and Gaia Data Release 2.
Based on our VLBA astrometry, we obtain a distance of 321+/-10 pc for IC 348.
This is fully consistent with the mean distance of 320+/-26 measured by Gaia.
The VLBA observations toward NGC 1333 are insufficient to claim a successful
distance measurement to this cluster. Gaia parallaxes, on the other hand, yield
a mean distance of 293+/-22 pc. Hence, the distance along the line of sight
between the eastern and western edges of the cloud is ~30 pc, which is
significantly smaller than previously inferred. We use Gaia proper motions and
published radial velocities to derive the spatial velocities of a selected
sample of stars. The average velocity vectors with respect to the LSR are
(u,v,w) = (-6.1+/-1.6, 6.8+/-1.1, -0.9+/-1.2) and (-6.4+/-1.0, 2.1+/-1.4,
-2.4+/-1.0) km/s for IC 348 and NGC 1333, respectively. Finally, our analysis
of the kinematics of the stars has shown that there is no clear evidence of
expansion, contraction, or rotational motions within the clusters.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
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