Jason Jackiewicz 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 use the Sun as a benchmark and  an empirical connection between these oscillations, effective temperature, mass, and radius \citep{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}. In this work, we consider KIC 9246715, an eclipsing binary with two nearly-identical red giant stars, yet only one set of solar-like oscillations. % 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. 

We explore how star spots and tidal forces may influence the oscillations, verify that the two stars are consistent with a co-evolutionary history, and discuss how this system can inform future detailed studies of RG/EBs.  In \S \ref{data}, we describe how we acquire and process photometric and spectroscopic data, and \S \ref{rvs} explains our radial velocity extraction process. In \S \ref{atm}, we disentangle each star's contribution to the spectra to perform stellar atmosphere modeling. We then present our final orbital solution and physical parameters for KIC 9246715 in \S \ref{model}. Finally, \S \ref{discuss} compares our results with those from asteroseismology and discusses the connection between solar-like oscillations, effects such as star spots and tidal forces, and implications for future RG/EB studies.