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A&A 453, 155-162 (2006)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20054466

Extended envelopes around Galactic Cepheids

II. Polaris and $\delta$ Cephei from near-infrared interferometry with CHARA/FLUOR
A. Mérand1, 2, P. Kervella1, V. Coudé du Foresto1, G. Perrin1, S. T. Ridgway3, 2, J. P. Aufdenberg3, T. A. ten Brummelaar2, H. A. McAlister2, L. Sturmann2, J. Sturmann2, N. H. Turner2 and D. H. Berger2

1  LESIA, UMR 8109, Observatoire de Paris, 5 place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon, France
    e-mail: antoine.merand@obspm.fr
2  Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy, Georgia State University, PO Box 3965, Atlanta, Georgia 30302-3965, USA
3  National Optical Astronomy Observatories 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA

(Received 3 November 2005 / Accepted 11 March 2006 )

Abstract
We present the results of long-baseline interferometric observations of the classical Cepheids Polaris and $\delta$ Cep in the near infrared K' band (1.9-2.3 $\mu$m), using the FLUOR instrument of the CHARA Array. Following our previous detection of a circumstellar envelope (CSE) around $\ell$ Car (Kervella et al. 2006), we report similar detections around Polaris and $\delta$ Cep. Owing to the large data set acquired on Polaris, in both the first and second lobes of visibility function, we have detected the presence of a circum-stellar envelope (CSE), located at $2.4\pm0.1$ stellar radii, accounting for $1.5\pm0.4$% of the stellar flux in the K band. A similar model is applied to the $\delta$ Cep data, which shows improved agreement compared to a model without CSE. Finally, we find that the bias in estimating the angular diameter of $\delta$ Cep in the framework of the Baade-Wesselink method (Mérand et al 2005b) is of the order of $1\%$ or less in the K band. A complete study of the influence of the CSE is proposed in this context, showing that at the optimum baseline for angular diameter variation detection, the bias is of the order of the formal precision in the determination of the $\delta$ Cep pulsation amplitude ($1.6\%$).


Key words: stars: variables: Cepheids -- stars: circumstellar matter -- stars: individual: Polaris ($\alpha$ Ursae Minoris) -- stars: individual: $\delta$ Cephei -- techniques: interferometric -- techniques: high angular resolution

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