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Vega, the second brightest star in the northern hemisphere, serves as a primary spectral type standard. While its spectrum is dominated by broad hydrogen lines, the narrower lines of the heavy elements suggested slow to moderate rotation, giving confidence that the ground-based calibration of its visibile spectrum could be safely extrapolated into the ultraviolet and near-infrared (through atmosphere models), where it also serves as the primary photometric calibrator. But there have been problems: the star is too bright compared to its peers and it has unusually shaped absorption line profiles, leading some to suggest that it is a distorted, rapidly rotating star seen pole-on. Here we report optical interferometric observations of Vega which detect the asymmetric brightness distribution of the bright, slightly offset polar axis of a star rotating at 93% of breakup speed. In addition to explaining the unusual brightness and line shape pecularities, this result leads to the prediction of an excess of near-infrared emission compared to the visible, in agreement with observations. The large temperature differences predicted across its surface call into question composition determinations, adding uncertainty to Vega's age and opening the possibility that its debris disk could be substantially older than previously thought., Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, a Letter to Nature, tentatively scheduled for April 13

We report successful fitting of a Roche model, with a surface temperature gradient following the von Zeipel gravity darkening law, to observations of Altair made with the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer. We confirm the claim by Ohishi, Nordgren, & Hutter that Altair displays an asymmetric intensity distribution due to rotation, the first such detection in an isolated star. Instrumental effects due to the high visible flux of this first magnitude star appear to be the limiting factor in the accuracy of this fit, which nevertheless indicates that Altair is rotating at 0.90+/-0.02 of its breakup (angular) velocity. Our results are consistent with the apparent oblateness found by van Belle et al. and show that the true oblateness is significantly larger owing to an inclination of the rotational axis of ~64 degrees to the line of sight. Of particular interest, we conclude that instead of being substantially evolved as indicated by its classification, A7 VI-V, Altair is only barely off the ZAMS and represents a good example of the difficulties rotation can introduce in the interpretation of this part of the HR diagram., Comment: Accepted by the Astrophysical Journal

We present radial velocity and new interferometric measurements of the double star Atlas, which permit, with the addition of published interferometric data, to precisely derive the orbital parameters of the binary system and the masses of the components. The derived semi-major axis, compared with its measured angular size, allows to determine a distance to Atlas of 132+-4 pc in a purely geometrical way. Under the assumption that the location of Atlas is representative of the average distance of the cluster, we confirm the distance value generally obtained through main sequence fitting, in contradiction with the early Hipparcos result (118.3+-3.5 pc)., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in A&A Letters

Observations of 85 stars were obtained at wavelengths between 451 and 800 nm with the Mark III Stellar Interferometer on Mount Wilson, near Pasadena, California. Angular diameters were determined by fitting a uniform-disk model to the visibility amplitude versus projected baseline length. Half the angular diameters determined at 800 nm have formal errors smaller than 1%. Limb-darkened angular diameters, effective temperatures, and surface brightnesses were determined for these stars, and relationships between these parameters are presented. Scatter in these relationships is larger than would be expected from the measurement uncertainties. We argue that this scatter is not due to an underestimate of the angular diameter errors whether it is due to photometric errors or is intrinsic to the relationship is unresolved. The agreement with other observations of the same stars at the same wavelengths is good; the width of the difference distribution is comparable to that estimated from the error bars, but the wings of the distribution are larger than Gaussian. Comparison with infrared measurements is more problematic; in disagreement with models,cooler stars appear systematically smaller in the near-infrared than expected, warmer stars larger., Published in the Astronomical Journal, v126 p2502-2520, Nov 2003. Prepared in collaboration with the US Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C. Prepared in cooperation with the Terrestrial Planet Finder Program, Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation, Boulder, CO, the Astrophysics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA.

We report on the first successful simultaneous combination of six independent optical telescopes in an interferometric array. This is double the number of independent telescopes and 5 times the number of independent baselines heretofore combined simultaneously. This was accomplished with the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer at Lowell Observatory near Flagstaff Arizona. We describe the main technologies demonstrated including hybrid six-way beam combination nonredundant multiple optical path modulation for fringe separation and the fringe detection electronics. To test the arrays suitability for high- resolution stellar imaging we observed the hierarchical triple star eta Virginis and we present the first images resolving all three components. The orbital motions of these stars were followed during winter and spring of 2002. Preliminary astrometrically determined orbits of the two components in the close pair by reference to the tertiary were derived. This enabled the estimation of the mass ratio (1.27) of the components in the close pair. We also determined the relative orbital inclination to be 31 deg. Future work needed to improve the calibration of the data is discussed., Pub. in the Astronomical Journal, v125 p2630-2644, May 2003. Prepared in cooperation with the Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ.

We present direct measurements of the limb-darkened intensity profiles of the late-type giant stars HR5299, HR7635, and HR8621 obtained with the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer (NPOI) at the Lowell Observatory. A triangle of baselines with lengths of 18.9 m, 22.2 m, and 37.5 m was used. We utilized squared visibility amplitudes beyond the first minimum, as well as triple amplitudes and phases in up to 10 spectral channels covering a wavelength range of ~650 nm to ~850 nm. We find that our data can best be described by featureless symmetric limb-darkened disk models while uniform disk and fully darkened disk models can be rejected. We derive high-precision angular limb-darkened diameters for the three stars of 7.44 mas +/- 0.11 mas, 6.18 mas +/- 0.07 mas, and 6.94 mas +/- 0.12 mas, respectively. Using the HIPPARCOS parallaxes, we determine linear limb-darkened radii of 114 R$_\odot \pm $13 R$_\odot$, 56 R$_\odot \pm $4 R$_\odot$, and 98 R$_\odot \pm $9 R$_\odot$, respectively. We compare our data to a grid of Kurucz stellar model atmospheres, with them derive the effective temperatures and surface gravities without additional information, and find agreement with independent estimates derived from empirical calibrations and bolometric fluxes. This confirms the consistency of model predictions and direct observations of the limb-darkening effect., Comment: 13 pages, accepted for publication in A&A

We present mean angular diameters for two cepheid variables, alpha Ursae Minoris and zeta Geminorum, determined with the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer (NPOI). We present linear radii for these cepheids and two additional cepheids, delta Cephei and eta Aquilae, previously observed at the NPOI. We find the limb-darkened angular diameter of alpha Ursae Minoris and of zeta Geminorum to be 3.28 +/- 0.02 and 1.55 +/- 0.09 milliarcseconds respectively. Using trigonometric parallaxes, we find the linear radii of alpha Ursae Minoris, zeta Geminorum, delta Cephei and eta Aquilae to be 46 (+/- 3), 60 (+25, -14), 45 (+8, -6), and 69 (+28, -15) Solar radii respectively. We compare the pulsation periods and linear radii of this sample of cepheids, which range in period from three to 11 days, to theoretical and empirical period-radius and period-radius-mass relations found in the literature. We find that the observed diameter of alpha Ursae Minoris is in excellent agreement with the predicted diameter as determined from both surface brightness techniques and theory only if alpha Ursae Minoris is a first overtone pulsator.

We have measured the diameters of the Cepheid variables delta Cephei (18 nights) and eta Aquilae (11 nights) with the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer. The primary results of these observations are the mean angular diameters of these Cepheids: 1.520 +/- 0.014 milliseconds of arc (mas) for delta Cep and 1.69 +/- 0.04 mas for eta Aql. We also report limb-darkened diameters for the check stars in this program: for beta Lac, theta(LD) = 1.909 +/- 0.011 mas, and for 12 Aql, theta(LD) = 2.418 +/- 0.010 mas. When combined with radius estimates from period-radius relations in the literature, the Cepheid angular diameters suggest distances slightly smaller than, but still consistent with, the Hipparcos distances. Pulsations are weakly detected at a level of about 1.5 sigma to 2 sigma for both Cepheids., Comment: 15 pages, including one figure; LaTeX 2e; uses aastex, aas_symbols, natbib; accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal

The Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer is operational with three baselines of up to 38 meters, which can be combined to form a closure phase usable for obtaining images. Work is well underway to extend the baseline lengths to a maximum of 437 meters, as well as to implement a 6-way beam combiner which will enable the simultaneous operation of 15 baselines. Since NPOI records data over a wavelength range of 500 nm to 850 nm, the coverage obtained with Earth-rotation aperture synthesis rivals the aperture coverage of narrow-band multi-station radio interferometers. In order to investigate the technique of obtaining images from NPOI data, we present actual imaging results, as well as images from simulated NPOI observations of stellar surfaces and multiple stellar systems. We discuss issues including the wavelength dependence of stellar structure, as well as their variability during the observations. We also point out fundamental differences to the imaging of radio data., Presented at the Proceedings from ASP Conference. Published in the Journal of Optical and IR Interferometry from Ground and Space ASP Conference Series, v194 p44, 1999. Edited by Stephen Unwin and Robert Stachnik. ISBN: 1-58381-020-X (1999), p.44

The luminous high-redshift (z=2.17) quasar S5 0836+710 has been observed at 5GHz with the VSOP. We compare the properties of three images obtained from the observation: a low-resolution ground array image (dynamic range 4600:1), a full-resolution VSOP image (900:1), and an image made with only the space baselines (200:1). The space baselines alone are sufficient for a reliable recovery of the source structure, within the limits of the achieved spatial sampling of the visibility data. The curved jet ridge line observed in the images can be described by Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities developing in a relativistic outflow with the Mach number of about 6. This description holds on the scales of up to 700h^-1 pc, and is shown to be consistent with variable apparent speeds observed in the jet., Comment: 5 pages, 5 PostScript figures, LaTeX2e, A&A macros, A&A, accepted