2004/02/11 by P. Kervella, P. Fouque, Pascal Fouqu +8 · 41 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing #Angular diameter #Angular resolution (graph drawing) #Astronomy #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #Brightness #Calibration #Cepheid variable #Galaxy #Interferometry #Optics #Physics #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Surface brightness #Telescope #Variation (astronomy) #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/383571
published in The Astrophysical Journal 604(2), L113-L116 (IOP Publishing) · 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL
arxiv created 2004/02/11 · openalex publication_date 2004/03/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Recent interferometric observations of the brightest and angularly largest classical Cepheid, ℓ Carinae, with ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer have resolved with high precision the variation of its angular diameter with phase. We compare the measured angular diameter curve to the one that we derive by an application of the Baade-Wesselink-type infrared surface brightness technique and find a near-perfect agreement between the two curves. The mean angular diameters of ℓ Car from the two techniques agree very well within their total error bars (1.5%), as do the derived distances (4%). This result is an indication that the calibration of the surface brightness relations used in the distance determination of far-away Cepheids is not affected by large biases.