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G.T. van Belle (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), R.R. Thompson (Jet Propulsion Laboratory/U. Wyoming)
We report new interferometric angular diameter observations of 24 carbon stars. Combining these with previously-published diameters for 22 other carbon stars, primarily found in Dyck, van Belle & Benson (1996), we are able to compute effective temperatures and linear radii for 46 stars. We assess the effects of circumstellar shells upon our temperature determinations and report on those stars we believe to be contaminated by the presence of a shell. Consistent with the previous Infrared-Optical Telescope Array (IOTA) investigation of these objects, the average temperature of entire sample is roughly 3000K. However, the linear size of our observed sample, obtained at the Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI), appears to be systematically smaller by a factor of two. Between the two sets of data, the mean radius for the entire carbon star sample is estimated to be 100-400 solar radii. As such, these stars appear to bridge the gap in effective temperature and radius between late M giants and Mira variables.
This work is part of a PTI observation program to characterize the basic physical parameters of carbon stars, and is supported by NASA.
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