Sirius Matters

1 SIRIUS MATTERS 2 Historical perspective 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Egypt and the ancient Middle East, 2.3 Ancient Greece and Rome, 2.4 Africa and Arabia .2.5 India, China, and the Far East, 2.6 North and South America, 2.7 Polynesia and Australia, 2.8 Jewish connections, 2.9 Conclusions 3 Mysteries of the Sirius System 3.1 The issue of historical redness, 3.2 Explanations for redness, 3.3 The binary nature of Sirius, 3.4 The Dogon tribe and a modern Sirius mystery, 3.5 Conclusions 4 Approaching modern times4.1 The discovery of Sirius B: a tale of gravity 4.2 A third body in the Sirius system?, 4.3 Modern searches for a third companion, 4.4 Conclusions 5 Modern optical measurements 5.1 Astrometry, 5.1.1 The Hipparcos satellite, 5.2 Photometry, 5.3 Spectroscopy, 5.3.1 Rotation, 5.3.2 Magnetic field, 5.3.3 Gravitational redshift and spectra of Sirius B, 5.4 Conclusions 6 Modern non-optical observations, 6.1 Infrared, 6.2 UV and EUV measurements, 6.3 High energy observations, 6.4 Basic stellar parameters, 6.5 Conclusions7 The neighborhood of Sirius |7.1 Interstellar matter, 7.2 Very small LISM structures in the Milky Way, 7.3 Stars in the neighborhood of Sirius, 7.4 Conclusions8 The perspective of stellar structure8.1 Upper main-sequence stars and Sirius A, 8.2 White dwarfs and Sirius B, 8.3 Conclusions 9 The perspective of stellar evolution9.1 Evolution of a main-sequence A star: Sirius A, 9.2 Evolution of a white dwarf: Sirius B, 9.3 Binary star evolution: Sirius as population representative, 9.4 Conclusions 10 Sirius revealed-a synthesis of the information10.1 Sirius analogs, 10.2 Sirius-basic data, 10.3 Synthesis of information, 10.3.1 Specific models for Sirius, 10.3.2 Red color in antiquity, 10.4 Conclusions