Catalogue of Apparent Diameters and Absolute Radii of Stars (CADARS) - Third Edition - Comments and Statistics

The Catalogue, available at the Centre de Donn\'ees Stellaires de Strasbourg, consists of 13573 records concerning the results obtained from different methods for 7778 stars, reported in the literature. The following data are listed for each star: identifications, apparent magnitude, spectral type, apparent diameter in arcsec, absolute radius in solar units, method of determination, reference, remarks. Comments and statistics obtained from CADARS are given.Comment: A&A, in pres

Gas and dust in the inner disk of the Herbig Ae star MWC 758

In this Letter we investigate the origin of the near-infrared emission of the Herbig Ae star MWC 758 on sub-astronomical unit (AU) scales using spectrally dispersed low resolution (R=35) AMBER/VLTI interferometric observations both in the H ($1.7 \mu$m) and K ($2.2 \mu$m) bands. We find that the K band visibilities and closure phases are consistent with the presence of a dusty disk inner rim located at the dust evaporation distance (0.4 AU) while the bulk of the H band emission arises within 0.1 AU from the central star. Comparing the observational results with theoretical model predictions, we suggest that the H band emission is dominated by an hot gaseous accretion disk.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

Near-infrared interferometric observation of the Herbig Ae star HD144432 with VLTI/AMBER

We study the sub-AU-scale circumstellar environment of the Herbig Ae star HD144432 with near-infrared (NIR) VLTI/AMBER observations to investigate the structure of its inner dust disk. The interferometric observations were carried out with the AMBER instrument in the H and K band. We interpret the measured H- and K-band visibilities, the near- and mid-infrared visibilities from the literature, and the SED of HD144432 by using geometric ring models and ring-shaped temperature-gradient disk models with power-law temperature distributions. We derived a K-band ring-fit radius of 0.17 \pm 0.01 AU and an H-band radius of 0.18 \pm 0.01 AU (for a distance of 145 pc). This measured K-band radius of \sim0.17 AU lies in the range between the dust sublimation radius of \sim0.13 AU (predicted for a dust sublimation temperature of 1500 K and gray dust) and the prediction of models including backwarming (\sim0.27 AU). We found that an additional extended halo component is required in both the geometric and temperature-gradient modeling. In the best temperature- gradient model, the disk consists of two components. The inner part of the disk is a thin ring with an inner radius of \sim0.21 AU, a temperature of \sim1600 K, and a ring thickness \sim0.02 AU. The outer part extends from \sim1 AU to \sim10 AU with an inner temperature of \sim400 K. We find that the disk is nearly face-on with an inclination angle of < 28 degree. Our temperature-gradient modeling suggests that the NIR excess is dominated by emission from a narrow, bright rim located at the dust sublimation radius, while an extended halo component contributes \sim6% to the total flux at 2 {\mu}m. The MIR model emission has a two-component structure with \sim20% flux from the inner ring and the rest from the outer part. This two-component structure suggests a disk gap, which is possibly caused by the shadow of a puffed-up inner rim.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted by A&

Synthetic and Observed Photometric Indices for Globular Clusters in the Galaxy and M31

Buzzoni's (1989) grid of synthetic spectral energy distributions, representative of old stellar populations, was used to derive colours in different photometric systems, and to compare the theoretical predictions with the observational data referring to about $120$ globular clusters in the Galaxy and to $159$ objects of the globular cluster system of M31. Synthetic and observed indices display an overall agreement in the composite planes of two-colour diagrams, thus in agreement with the standard evolutionary scenario leading, for globular clusters, to old stellar populations consistent with an age of $15$ Gyr and a Salpeter initial mass function (IMF). The two main parameters modulating the cluster colour distributions are, as known, metallicity and horizontal branch morphology, while IMF slope and mass loss rate from stars in the red-giant branch and asymptotic-giant branch evolutionary stages produce only minor, although not negligible, effects on the integrated colours. The M31 and Galactic cluster populations are found to be substantially similar, at least as far as the spectral energy distribution characteristics in the $U \to V$ spectral range are concerned.Comment: (23 pages, uuencoded and compressed PostScript, available also by anonymous ftp at bach.mi.astro.it in /priv/users/covino as paper.ps.Z). Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. FFSP-940