Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 1–?? (2002) Printed 29 August 2014 (MN LATEX style file v2.2)
On the mass estimation for FGK stars: comparison of several methods
F. J. G. Pinheiro1,2⋆, J. M. Fernandes1,2,3, M. S. Cunha4,5, M. J. P. F. G. Monteiro4,5,6, N. C. Santos4,5,6, S. G. Sousa4,5,6, J. P. Marques7, J.-J. Fang8, A. Mortier9 and J. Sousa4,5 1Centro de Geofísica da Universidade de Coimbra 2Observatório Geofísico e Astronómico da Universidade de Coimbra 3Departamento de Matemática da Universidade de Coimbra, Largo D. Dinis, P-3001-454 Coimbra, Portugal 4Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Universidade do Porto, CAUP, Rua das Estrelas, PT4150-762 Porto, Portugal 5Centro de Astrofísica, Universidade do Porto, Rua das Estrelas, 4150-762 Porto, Portugal 6Departamento de Física e Astronomia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Portugal 7The Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Orsay, France 8Centro de Física Computacional, Department of Physics, University of Coimbra, P-3004-516 Coimbra, Portugal 9SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9SS, UK
Accepted . Received
ABSTRACT Stellar evolutionary models simulate well binary stars when individual stellar mass and system metallicity are known. The mass can be derived directly from observations only in the case of multiple stellar systems, mainly binaries. Yet the number of such stars for which ls accurate stellar masses are available is rather small. The main goal of this project is to provide realistic mass estimates for an homogeneous sample of about a thousand FGK single stars, using four different methods and techniques. We present the masses inferred according to each one of these methods as well as a final mass estimate consisting in the median of the four mass estimates. The proceduresevaluated here include the use of stellar evolutionary models, mass- luminosity relation and surface gravity spectroscopic observations. By combining the results obtained with different methods, we determine the best mass-value for each individual star, as well as the associated error budget. Our results confirm the expected consistency between the different mass estimation methods. Nonetheless, for masses above 1.2M⊙ the spectroscopic surface gravities seem to overestimate the mass. This result may be a consequence of the spectroscopic surface gravities used in this analysis. Nevertheless this problem is minimized by the fact the we have available several approaches for deriving stellar masses. Moreover, we suggest an empirical procedure to overcome this issue. Key words: Methods: numerical, Stars: fundamental parameters, Stars: Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) and C-M, Stars: binaries
1 INTRODUCTION by Torres et al. 2010). Unfortunately, the number of stars for which accurate stellar masses are available is less than 180 (Torres et al. The mass is a fundamental stellar parameter. Moreover, the stellar 2010). Moreover, in most cases these are members of eclipsing mass has a major impact in other astrophysical contexts, such as in binaries for which the metallicity (for example) is currently un- studies of the initial mass function, of the mass-luminosity relation, known or poorly known. Different methods are commonly used to the study of extra-solar planets and their frequency for stars of dif- determine the mass of single stars. In particular, for FGK stars we ferent mass, and of the definition of the star-brown dwarf limit. All can find semi-observational, empirical and theoretical methods for these aspects are fundamental when studying the global proprieties mass determination. of the Galaxy and when attempting to improve the characterization of stellar populations in galaxies. As a semi-observational method we may consider the deter- Stellar masses can be determined with accuracy only for vi- mination of the mass through the surface gravity. Spectroscopic sual, spectroscopic and eclipsing binaries. For the latter an accu- analysis of a star allows for the determination of effective tempera- racy of 1 to 3% can be achieved (Andersen 1991; recently revised ture, metallicity and surface gravity (e.g. Sousa et al. 2006; Santos et al. 2005). Currently, the knowledge of the photometry (including bolometric correction) and parallax allows the luminosity (L) to be ⋆ E-mail:[email protected] determined and then the mass can be estimated. This methodology