Browsing by Subject "infrared telescope facility"
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Item How To Constrain Your M Dwarf: Measuring Effective Temperature, Bolometric Luminosity, Mass, And Radius(2015-05) Mann, Andrew W.; Feiden, Gregory A.; Gaidos, Eric; Boyajian, Tabetha; von Braun, Kaspar; Mann, Andrew W.Precise and accurate parameters for late-type (late K and M) dwarf stars are important for characterization of any orbiting planets, but such determinations have been hampered by these stars' complex spectra and dissimilarity to the Sun. We exploit an empirically calibrated method to estimate spectroscopic effective temperature (T-eff) and the Stefan-Boltzmann law to determine radii of 183 nearby K7-M7 single stars with a precision of 2%-5%. Our improved stellar parameters enable us to develop model-independent relations between Teff or absolute magnitude and radius, as well as between color and T-eff. The derived T-eff-radius relation depends strongly on [Fe/H], as predicted by theory. The relation between absolute K-S magnitude and radius can predict radii accurate to similar or equal to 3%. We derive bolometric corrections to the VR(C)I(C)grizJHK(S) and Gaia passbands as a function of color, accurate to 1%-3%. We confront the reliability of predictions from Dartmouth stellar evolution models using a Markov chain Monte Carlo to find the values of unobservable model parameters (mass, age) that best reproduce the observed effective temperature and bolometric flux while satisfying constraints on distance and metallicity as Bayesian priors. With the inferred masses we derive a semi-empirical mass-absolute magnitude relation with a scatter of 2% in mass. The best-agreement models overpredict stellar T-eff values by an average of 2.2% and underpredict stellar radii by 4.6%, similar to differences with values from low-mass eclipsing binaries. These differences are not correlated with metallicity, mass, or indicators of activity, suggesting issues with the underlying model assumptions, e.g., opacities or convective mixing length.Item M Dwarf Metallicities And Giant Planet Occurrence: Ironing Out Uncertainties And Systematics(2014-08) Gaidos, Eric; Mann, Andrew W.; Mann, Andrew W.Comparisons between the planet populations around solar-type stars and those orbiting M dwarfs shed light on the possible dependence of planet formation and evolution on stellar mass. However, such analyses must control for other factors, i.e., metallicity, a stellar parameter that strongly influences the occurrence of gas giant planets. We obtained infrared spectra of 121 M dwarfs stars monitored by the California Planet Search and determined metallicities with an accuracy of 0.08 dex. The mean and standard deviation of the sample are -0.05 and 0.20 dex, respectively. We parameterized the metallicity dependence of the occurrence of giant planets on orbits with a period less than two years around solar-type stars and applied this to our M dwarf sample to estimate the expected number of giant planets. The number of detected planets (3) is lower than the predicted number (6.4), but the difference is not very significant (12% probability of finding as many or fewer planets). The three M dwarf planet hosts are not especially metal rich and the most likely value of the power-law index relating planet occurrence to metallicity is 1.06 dex per dex for M dwarfs compared to 1.80 for solar-type stars; this difference, however, is comparable to uncertainties. Giant planet occurrence around both types of stars allows, but does not necessarily require, a mass dependence of similar to 1 dex per dex. The actual planet-mass-metallicity relation may be complex, and elucidating it will require larger surveys like those to be conducted by ground-based infrared spectrographs and the Gaia space astrometry mission.Item Prospecting In Ultracool Dwarfs: Measuring The Metallicities Of Mid- And Late-M Dwarfs(2014-06) Mann, Andrew W.; Deacon, Niall R.; Gaidos, Eric; Ansdell, Megan; Brewer, John M.; Liu, Michael C.; Magnier, Eugene A.; Aller, Kimberly M.; Mann, Andrew W.Metallicity is a fundamental parameter that contributes to the physical characteristics of a star. The low temperatures and complex molecules present in M dwarf atmospheres make it difficult to measure their metallicities using techniques that have been commonly used for Sun-like stars. Although there has been significant progress in developing empirical methods to measure Mdwarf metallicities over the last few years, these techniques have been developed primarily for early-to mid-M dwarfs. We present a method to measure the metallicity of mid-to late-M dwarfs from moderate resolution (R similar to 2000) K-band (similar or equal to 2.2 mu m) spectra. We calibrate our formula using 44 wide binaries containing an F, G, K, or early-M primary of known metallicity and a mid-to late-M dwarf companion. We show that similar features and techniques used for early-M dwarfs are still effective for late-M dwarfs. Our revised calibration is accurate to similar to 0.07 dex for M4.5-M9.5 dwarfs with -0.58 < [Fe/H] < +0.56 and shows no systematic trends with spectral type, metallicity, or the method used to determine the primary star metallicity. We show that our method gives consistent metallicities for the components of M+M wide binaries. We verify that our new formula works for unresolved binaries by combining spectra of single stars. Lastly, we show that our calibration gives consistent metallicities with the Mann et al. study for overlapping (M4-M5) stars, establishing that the two calibrations can be used in combination to determine metallicities across the entire M dwarf sequence.