Weighing Betelgeuse: Measuring the mass of alpha Orionis from stellar limb-darkening

Understand

Stellar limb-darkening is an important tool for constraining the properties of a stellar atmosphere.

• We present a novel method for relating the fundamental stellar parameters mass and radius to limb-darkening laws using grids of spherical model stellar atmospheres.
• This method is applied to interferometric observations of the red supergiant Betelgeuse, where an unique measure of the stellar mass is determined.