From Visibilities to Science with Simple Models

University of Cambridge, Astrophysics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK

Abstract

This is the manuscript of an "interactive seminar" from the programme of the EuroWinter School. These seminars were designed to illustrate areas of science that will be accessible to the VLTI and its first-generation instruments. This paper discusses the use of optical/IR interferometers to investigate the limb-darkening of stars, with particular emphasis on models with a one or two free parameters i.e. the kind of models that will be constrained by data from the first-generation VLTI. For this reason the paper is not a comprehensive treatment of limb-darkening measurement. Ideas from the introductory lectures of the School are illustrated here, using real data on a Mira variable star from the COAST interferometer.