arXiv · 0808.0641
Distance to VY Canis Majoris with VERA
Abstract
We report astrometric observations of H2O masers around the red supergiant VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) carried out with VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA). Based on astrometric monitoring for 13 months, we successfully measured a trigonometric parallax of 0.88 +/- 0.08 mas, corresponding to a distance of 1.14 +0.11/-0.09 kpc. This is the most accurate distance to VY CMa and the first one based on an annual parallax measurement. The luminosity of VY CMa has been overestimated due to a previously accepted distance. With our result, we re-estimate the luminosity of VY CMa to be (3 +/- 0.5) x 10^5 L_sun using the bolometric flux integrated over optical and IR wavelengths. This improved luminosity value makes location of VY CMa on the Hertzsprung-Russel (HR) diagram much closer to the theoretically allowable zone (i.e. the left side of the Hayashi track) than previous ones, though uncertainty in the effective temperature of the stellar surface still does not permit us to make a final conclusion.
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Yoon Kyung Choi, Tomoya Hirota, Mareki Honma, Hideyuki Kobayashi, Takeshi Bushimata, Hiroshi Imai, Kenzaburo Iwadate, Takaaki Jike, Seiji Kameno, Osamu Kameya, Ryuichi Kamohara, Yukitoshi Kan-ya, Noriyuki Kawaguchi, Masachika Kijima, Mi Kyoung Kim, Seisuke Kuji, Tomoharu Kurayama, Seiji Manabe, Kenta Maruyama, Makoto Matsui, Naoko Matsumoto, Takeshi Miyaji, Takumi Nagayama, Akiharu Nakagawa, Kayoko Nakamura, Chung Sik Oh, Toshihiro Omodaka, Tomoaki Oyama, Satoshi Sakai, Tetsuo Sasao, Katsuhisa Sato, Mayumi Sato, Katsunori M. Shibata, Yoshiaki Tamura, Miyuki Thushima, Kazuyoshi Yamashita. 2008-08-05. Distance to VY Canis Majoris with VERA. https://doi.org/10.1093/pasj%2F60.5.1007
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