"Collaborative Project: Distances and Ages from Detached Eclipsing Binary Stars" AST-9819786
This is a multi-pronged collaborative investigation of newly discovered eclipsing binary stars with Bohdan Paczynski at Princeton University (AST-9819787). The goal is to provide distance determinations, compositions and ages for stars in globular clusters and the Magellanic Clouds found during the course of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). An extensive observational effort will be undertaken to obtain photometric and spectroscopic observations of OGLE binaries from which distances, masses and radii can be determined using standard techniques. These measurements, made for an unprecedented large number of binaries, will provide firm tests of stellar evolution theory, further constrain globular cluster ages, and thus contribute improved minimum age estimates for the Galaxy and Universe at large.
