Imaging the Surface of Altair

(2) St. Andrews; (3) Cambridge; (4) Caltech; (5) Cornell; (6) Grenoble; (7) Michelson Science Center; (8) Georgia State -- CHARA; (9) NOAO); D. Berger (1) ((1) U. Michigan; E. Pedretti (2)

arxiv: 0706.0867 · v2 · submitted 2007-06-06 · 🌌 astro-ph

Imaging the Surface of Altair

John D. Monnier (1) , M. Zhao (1) , E. Pedretti (2) , N. Thureau (3) , M. Ireland (4) , P. Muirhead (5) , J.-P. Berger (6) , R. Millan-Gabet (7)

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G. Van Belle (7) T. ten Brummelaar (8) H. McAlister (8) S. Ridgway (9) N. Turner (8) L. Sturmann (8) J. Sturmann (8) D. Berger (1) ((1) U. Michigan (2) St. Andrews (3) Cambridge (4) Caltech (5) Cornell (6) Grenoble (7) Michelson Science Center (8) Georgia State -- CHARA (9) NOAO)

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classification 🌌 astro-ph

keywords altairdarkeninggravityimagerotatingstarstellaradvance

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Spatially resolving the surfaces of nearby stars promises to advance our knowledge of stellar physics. Using optical long-baseline interferometry, we present here a near-infrared image of the rapidly rotating hot star Altair with <1 milliarcsecond resolution. The image clearly reveals the strong effect of gravity darkening on the highly-distorted stellar photosphere. Standard models for a uniformly rotating star can not explain our results, requiring differential rotation, alternative gravity darkening laws, or both.

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Imaging the Surface of Altair

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