Separated Fringe Packet Observations with the CHARA Array. II. Omega Andromeda, HD 178911, and Xi Cephei

When observed with optical long-baseline interferometers, components of a binary star that are sufficiently separated produce their own interferometric fringe packets; these are referred to as separated fringe packet (SFP) binaries. These SFP binaries can overlap in angular separation with the regime of systems resolvable by speckle interferometry at single, large-aperture telescopes and can provide additional measurements for preliminary orbits lacking good phase coverage, help constrain elements of already established orbits, and locate new binaries in the undersampled regime between the bounds of spectroscopic surveys and speckle interferometry. In this process, a visibility calibration star is not needed, and the SFPs can provide an accurate vector separation. In this paper, we apply the SFP approach to Omega Andromeda, HD 178911, and xi Cephei with the CLIMB three-beam combiner at the CHARA Array. For these systems we determine component masses and parallax of 0.963 + or - 0.049 solar mass and 0.860 + or - 0.051 solar mass and 39.54 + or - 1.85 mas for omega Andromeda, for HD 178911 of 0.802 + or - 0.055 solar mass and 0.622 + or - 0.053 solar mass with 28.26 + or - 1.70 mas, and masses of 1.045 + or - 0.031 solar mass and 0.408 + or - 0.066 solar mass and 38.10 + or - 2.81 mas for Xi Cephei.
Published in The Astronomical Journal, 148:48 (8pp), Sep 2014. The original document contains color images.