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    How To Constrain Your M Dwarf: Measuring Effective Temperature, Bolometric Luminosity, Mass, And Radius

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    2015_05_constrainmdwarf.pdf (3.946Mb)
    Date
    2015-05
    Author
    Mann, Andrew W.
    Feiden, Gregory A.
    Gaidos, Eric
    Boyajian, Tabetha
    von Braun, Kaspar
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    Abstract
    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.
    Department
    Astronomy
    Subject
    planetary systems
    stars: abundances
    stars: fundamental parameters
    stars: late-type
    stars: lowmass
    stars: statistics
    main-sequence stars
    stellar evolution models
    integral-field
    spectrograph
    primordial helium abundance
    infrared telescope facility
    giant planet occurrence
    broad-band photometry
    yr(-1) motion sample
    binary cm draconis
    solar-type stars
    astronomy & astrophysics
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/2152/34940
    Citation
    Mann, Andrew W., Gregory A. Feiden, Eric Gaidos, Tabetha Boyajian, and Kaspar von Braun. "How to Constrain Your M Dwarf: Measuring Effective Temperature, Bolometric Luminosity, Mass, and Radius." The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 804, No. 1 (May., 2015): 64.
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