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Article: Research from University of Toulouse broadens understanding of astrophysics.
- Article from:
- Electronics Newsweekly
- Article date:
- October 14, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 NewsRX. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"We observe the nearby, weakly-active single giant, Pollux, in order to directly study and infer the nature of its magnetic field. We used the new generation spectropolarimeters ESPaDOnS and NARVAL to observe and detect circular polarization within the photospheric absorption lines of Pollux," investigators in Tarbes, France report.
"Our observations span 18 months from 2007-2009. We treated the spectropolarimetric data using the Least-Squares Deconvolution method to create high signal-to-noise ratio mean Stokes V profiles. We also measured the classical activity indicator S-index for the Ca II H and K lines, and the stellar radial velocity ( RV). We have ...