Weighing stars from birth to death: mass determination methods across the HRD

The mass of a star is the most fundamental parameter for its structure, evolution, and final fate. It is particularly important for any kind of stellar archaeology and characterization of exoplanets. There exists a variety of methods in astronomy to estimate or determine it. In this review we present a significant number of such methods, beginning with the most direct and model-independent approach using detached eclipsing binaries. We then move to more indirect and model-dependent methods, such as the quite commonly used isochrone or stellar track fitting. The arrival of quantitative asteroseismology has opened a completely new approach to determine stellar masses and to complement and improve the accuracy of other methods. We include methods for different evolutionary stages, from the pre-main sequence to evolved (super)giants and final remnants. For all methods uncertainties and restrictions will be discussed. We provide lists of altogether more than 200 benchmark stars with relative mass accuracies between $[0.3,2]\%$ for the covered mass range of M\in [0.1,16]\,\msun, $75\%$ of which are stars burning hydrogen in their core and the other $25\%$ covering all other evolved stages. We close with a recommendation how to combine various methods to arrive at a "mass-ladder" for stars.Comment: Invited review article for The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review. 146 pages, 16 figures, 11 tables. Accepted version by the Journal. It includes summary figure of accuracy/precision of methods for mass ranges and summary table for individual method

Weighing stars from birth to death : mass determination methods across the HRD

Funding: C.A., J.S.G.M., and M.G.P. received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 670519: MAMSIE). N.B. gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Royal Society (University Research Fellowships) and from the European Research Council (ERC-CoG-646928, Multi-Pop).The mass of a star is the most fundamental parameter for its structure, evolution, and final fate. It is particularly important for any kind of stellar archaeology and characterization of exoplanets. There exist a variety of methods in astronomy to estimate or determine it. In this review we present a significant number of such methods, beginning with the most direct and model-independent approach using detached eclipsing binaries. We then move to more indirect and model-dependent methods, such as the quite commonly used isochrone or stellar track fitting. The arrival of quantitative asteroseismology has opened a completely new approach to determine stellar masses and to complement and improve the accuracy of other methods. We include methods for different evolutionary stages, from the pre-main sequence to evolved (super)giants and final remnants. For all methods uncertainties and restrictions will be discussed. We provide lists of altogether more than 200 benchmark stars with relative mass accuracies between [0.3 ,2 ]% for the covered mass range of M ∈[0.1 ,16 ] M⊙ , 75 % of which are stars burning hydrogen in their core and the other 25 % covering all other evolved stages. We close with a recommendation how to combine various methods to arrive at a "mass-ladder" for stars.PostprintPeer reviewe

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

Unstatic State: New Music in an Old-Time World

This talk will focus on my approach to engaging with Appalachian topics in compositions of new music, highlighting experimental and chamber works as well as my recent oratorio, State. A 40-minute work for soloists, women’s choir, percussion, piano, and electronics, State is a direct adaptation of oral histories I collected from Urban Appalachians in Cincinnati, and was premiered in Cincinnati’s Lower Price Hill neighborhood in April 2016. After giving an account of my journey as a composer and my interest in Appalachia, I will address questions of musical style and audience expectation, with special attention to the broader artistic project of making multivalent work about Appalachia that seeks to avoid the readymade set of associations that is often uncritically attached to the mountain folk music traditions. I introduce this effort as part of a dialectic between the important work being done to preserve and celebrate mountain folkways and the efforts underway to portray Appalachia as diverse, complex, and relevant to contemporary cultural discourse on a national level. I will situate this work within the context of the current climate in Appalachian music, literature, and photography. Note: this presentation can best be described as an artist talk, but I wasn\u27t sure how that fit into the available formats. I\u27m happy either to present it in the window of a paper or to adapt it into a longer format if deemed appropriate

Dust in the Bottomland

Dust in the Bottomland is a 40-minute chamber opera for one singer, piano, and fixed media. Set in southern West Virginia, it is the story of a man who turned his back on West Virginia after leaving for college, and after ten years away, has returned home to be with his family as his sister lies in a coma induced by a prescription drug overdose. His observations and reflections on changes to the physical and social landscape of his home, recollections of why he left and the question of whether or not to stay make up the songs and spoken words of Dust in the Bottomland. For the past few months we have been performing the piece around Appalachia, and we are currently setting up performances outside the region. After each performance, we open up the floor for comments and questions. At the Appalachian Studies Conference, we would like to perform the piece and then have a similar discussion, at which point we would be happy to discuss art and depiction in Appalachia, as well as the process of our collaboration. Note: we will need a piano (preferably a grand or baby grand) in tune and in good working order, as well as a sound amplification system, but other than that none of the technology listed

Many Mountains, Many Musics, Many Movements

The roundtable focuses broadly on hip hop within Appalachia. Presenters will interact with the audience, but focus briefly on the following:Forrest Yerman will discuss the evolution of spirituals, to blues, to jazz, to rhythm and blues to, funk, to hip hop in a large American context, and apply that discussion to Appalachia. Willard Watson will discuss the publication and distribution of Hip Hop/Rap in the region, differentiating between mainstream artists and mixtape culture within the region and conclude by sharing an online resource for finding Appalachian Hip Hop. Nate May will be speaking to the West Virginia rap scene and his research as a music scholar. Moderator, Jordan Laney, will organize questions and frame the discussion as an exploration of race, aesthetics, and possibilities in the region

Leverage Artificial Intelligence to Learn, Optimize, and Wargame (LAILOW) for Navy Ships

Navy ships are complex enterprises comprised of multiple organizations that must interact smoothly and interface externally without threats to efficiency and combat-readiness. As logistical challenges increase and technology pushes response times, it is critical to introduce state of the art computational methods for analyzing the interlocked systems and training for different events. To address these challenges in this context, we introduce a framework called LAILOW: learn, optimize, and wargame. LAILOW exploits data arising from multiple sources in a complex enterprise by offering data mining, machine learning, and predictive algorithms that can be used for analysis and discovery of patterns, rules, and anomalies. LAILOW's output can then be used to optimize business processes and course of actions. We show three use cases of using the of LAILOW framework. We show the whole LAILOW framework to search for vulnerability of a major Marine equipment's maintenance and supply system for difficult tests and evolve resilience and novel solutions accordingly. We show using of lexical link analysis (LLA) as part of LAILOW to improve the prediction accuracy of probability of failure of critical Navy Ship parts, related to C4I systems, for NAVWARSYSCOM's Predictive Risk Sparing Matrix (PRiSM) product. We also show the comparison of LLA prioritizing items in the Financially Restricted Work Que (FRWQ) with the baseline calculation.Prepared for the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93943.Naval Postgraduate SchoolApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

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