Henri Boffin – Science - An interferometric view of binary stars

An interferometric view of binary stars

Orbit The study of binary stars is critical to apprehend many of the most interesting classes of stars. Moreover, quite often, the study of stars in binary systems is our only mean to constrain stellar properties, such as masses and radii. Unfortunately, a great fraction of the most interesting binaries are so compact that they can only be apprehended by high-resolution techniques, mostly by interferometry.

Here are some examples of how I have used interferometry with colleagues to get important results on different classes of stars.

You can also get the PDF of my poster at SPIE 2016, in A4 or in full sizes, while the written article is available here.

Work on precise stellar masses:

Work on symbiotic stars:

Work on massive stars:

For application to the visible, see: Science cases for a visible interferometer, by Stee, P. et al. (2017).