The SWIPE project:  Stars With Pulsations and Eclipses

Contents:

• science goals
• people
• publications
• stars done
• stars to do
• other relevant papers

I can be contacted at

This website is still in progress (sorry).

What's the idea?

Eclipsing binary stars are our main source of measurements of the properties of normal stars. Their masses and radii can be measure to high precision (0.5% and better) from observational data using only geometry and celestial mechanics. Their temperatures can also be measured directly, although with some difficulty.

Asteroseismology is another important window on the properties of stars: measuring their pulsation frequencies allows a determination of their interior structure (core size, rotation, mixing, age) by comparison to predicted pulsation frequencies from theoretical stellar models.

Eclipsing and pulsating stars allow the two sets of analysis to be performed together on individual stars, leading to better constraints on theoretical models and thus a better understanding of stars.

The SWIPE project aims to do this for a large number of pulsating stars in eclipsing binaries, leading to major improvements in our theoretical description of them. We study detached eclipsing binaries, so the stars have not experienced mass transfer or strong proximity effects so are representative of normal single stars. We study a variety of pulsation types (β Cep, δ Scuti, SPB, γ Dor, solar-like) because each opens different possibilities for improving our understanding.

How's it going?

We have several publications plus more in progress. We also have a pile of follow-up spectroscopy of many more targets and are working on the best of these. Watch this space!

Last modified: 2023/05/31           John Southworth   (Keele University, UK)