Taking the temperature of red giant stars in Globular clusters
The effective temperature is one of the most fundamental parameters of a star, and its precise determination is crucial for a number of purposes, e.g., from measuring chemical abundances and ages, to improving stellar and atmosphere models.
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The effective temperature is one of the most fundamental parameters of a star, and its precise determination is crucial for a number of purposes, e.g., from measuring chemical abundances and ages, to improving stellar and atmosphere models. One of the most reliable ways to determine stellar effective temperature is provided by the InfraRed Flux Method (IRFM), which uses multi-band optical and infrared photometry to recover stellar bolometric fluxes, effective temperature, and angular diameters.
In this project, you will use the IRFM to determine effective temperatures of red giant stars in Globular Clusters. Th project will involve the construction of photometric fiducials for Globular clusters as well as the computation of a new grid of model fluxes to use in the IRFM, taking into account the effect of chemical abundance variations among cluster stars. Implications of this work will range from a better characterization of multiple stellar populations in Globular clusters to constraining variations in mixing-length parameters for models of red giant stars.
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Associate Director IDEA