Meredith L. Rawls edited Introduction.tex  almost 9 years ago

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\section{Introduction}\label{intro}  % big picture context  Mass and radius are often-elusive stellar properties that are critical to understanding a star's past, present, and future. Eclipsing binaries are the only astrophysical laboratories that allow for a direct measurement of these and other fundamental physical parameters. Recently, however, observing solar-like oscillations in stars with convective envelopes has opened a window to stellar interiors and provided a new way to measure global stellar properties. Asteroseismic scaling relations are an empirical connection between these oscillations, effective temperature, mass, and radius \citep{kje95,hub10,mos13}. \cite{kje95,hub10,mos13}.  While these relations are useful, they remain relatively untested. One notable exception is the red giant in the eclipsing binary KIC 8410637, which shows good agreement between Keplerian and asteroseismic mass and radius \citep{fra13}. \cite{fra13}.  In this work, we consider another archetypal case: KIC 9246715, an eclipsing binary composed of one oscillating red giant and one non-oscillating red giant. % asteroseismology w/Kepler is an awesome tool  Stars with convective outer layers potentially exhibit solar-like oscillations. These oscillations depend on the physical processes in their interiors. In particular, evolved red giants are increasingly easy to characterize through these pressure-mode oscillations \citep[for a review of this topic, see][]{cha13}. Compared to main-sequence stars, red giants oscillate with larger amplitudes and longer periods---several hours to days instead of minutes. Oscillations appear as spikes in the amplitude spectrum of a light curve that is sampled both frequently enough and for a sufficiently long duration. Given these two requirements, observations from the \emph{Kepler} space telescope taken every 29.4 minutes (long-cadence) over many 90-day quarters are ideal for asteroseismic studies of red giant stars.