Accurate masses and radii of normal stars: modern results and applications

By G. Torres, J. Andersen, Á. Giménez. 2009

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This article presents and discusses a critical compilation of accurate, fundamental determinations of stellar masses and radii. We have identified 95 detached binary systems containing 190 stars (94 eclipsing systems, and α Centauri) that satisfy our criterion that the mass and radius of both stars be known within errors of ±3% accuracy or better. All of them are non-interacting systems, and so the stars should have evolved as if they were single. This sample more than doubles that of the earlier similar review by Andersen (Astron Astrophys Rev 3:91–126, 1991), extends the mass range at both ends and, for the first time, includes an extragalactic binary. In every case, we have examined the original data and recomputed the stellar parameters with a consistent set of assumptions and physical constants. To these we add interstellar reddening, effective temperature, metal abundance, rotational velocity and apsidal motion determinations when available, and we compute a number of other physical parameters, notably luminosity and distance. These accurate physical parameters reveal the effects of stellar evolution with unprecedented clarity, and we discuss the use of the data in observational tests of stellar evolution models in some detail. Earlier findings of significant structural differences between moderately fast-rotating, mildly active stars and single stars, ascribed to the presence of strong magnetic and spot activity, are confirmed beyond doubt. We also show how the best data can be used to test prescriptions for the subtle interplay between convection, diffusion, and other non-classical effects in stellar models. The amount and quality of the data also allow us to analyse the tidal evolution of the systems in considerable depth, testing prescriptions of rotational synchronisation and orbital circularisation in greater detail than possible before. We show that the formulae for pseudo-synchronisation of stars in eccentric orbits predict the observed rotations quite well, except for very young and/or widely separated stars. Deviations do occur, however, especially for stars with convective envelopes. The superior data set finally demonstrates that apsidal motion rates as predicted from General Relativity plus tidal theory are in good agreement with the best observational data. No reliable binary data exist, which challenge General Relativity to any significant extent. The new data also enable us to derive empirical calibrations of M and R for single (post-) main-sequence stars above $${0.6\,M_{\odot}}$$. Simple, polynomial functions of Teff, log g and [Fe/H] yield M and R within errors of 6 and 3%, respectively. Excellent agreement is found with independent determinations for host stars of transiting extrasolar planets, and good agreement with determinations of M and R from stellar models as constrained by trigonometric parallaxes and spectroscopic values of Teff and [Fe/H]. Finally, we list a set of 23 interferometric binaries with masses known to be better than 3%, but without fundamental radius determinations (except α Aur). We discuss the prospects for improving these and other stellar parameters in the near future.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2c8e85438018dab8f9ab252e835937dc04b4b055

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Citations in the corpus

STELLAR DIAMETERS AND TEMPERATURES. II. MAIN-SEQUENCE K- AND M-STARS (2012, methodology): “For the following discussion, we collect the binary star parameters presented in Table 2 of Torres et al. (2010) together with the low-mass binaries and secondaries in binaries compiled in López-Morales (2007).”
Making Galaxies in a Cosmological Context: The Need for Early Stellar Feedback (2012, methodology): “To model the luminosity of stars, a simple fit of the mass-luminosity relationship observed in binary star systems by Torres et al. (2010) is used: L L⊙ =”
The Updated BaSTI Stellar Evolution Models and Isochrones. I. Solar-scaled Calculations (2018, background): “It has been recognized since some time the existence of a disagreement between theoretical and observational MR relationships for low-mass stars, with model radii typically 10-20% smaller than observations for a fixed mass, (see, e.g., Torres et al. 2010, for a review).”
OBLIQUITIES OF HOT JUPITER HOST STARS: EVIDENCE FOR TIDAL INTERACTIONS AND PRIMORDIAL MISALIGNMENTS (2012, background): “Torres et al. (2010) and Mazeh (2008) review the evidence for tidal interactions in double-star systems, and provide more access points to the literature.”
The HARPS search for Earth-like planets in the habitable zone - I. Very low-mass planets around HD 20794, HD 85512, and HD 192310 (2011, methodology): “…widths) measured by Sousa et al. The resulting [Fe/H] is −0.34, very close to the original value of Sousa et al. Finally, we estimated the stellar mass using both effective temperature values mentioned above, and making use of the mass–Teff− log g−[Fe/H] calibration of Torres et al. (2010).”
Detection of carbon monoxide in the high-resolution day-side spectrum of the exoplanet HD 189733b (2013, methodology): “…have a measure of the velocity and the orbital inclination of both the star and the planet around their common barycentre, model-independent estimates of their masses can be obtained in the same way as has been done for stellar eclipsing binaries for more than a century (e.g. Torres et al. 2010).”
The TRAPPIST survey of southern transiting planets. I. Thirty eclipses of the ultra-short period planet WASP-43 b (2012, methodology): “…stellar density and values forTe f f and [Fe/H] drawn from their prior distributions, a modified version of the stellar mass calibration law deduced by Torres et al. (2010) from well-constrained detached binary systems (see Gillon et al. 2011b for details) is used to derive the stellar mass.”
SWEET-Cat: A catalogue of parameters for Stars With ExoplanETs - I. New atmospheric parameters and masses for 48 stars with planets (2013, methodology): “Stellar masses and their errors were computed with the corrected calibration of Torres et al. (2010) as discussed in Section 3.2.1.”
Magnetic Inhibition of Convection and the Fundamental Properties of Low-Mass Stars. III. A Consistent 10 Myr Age for the Upper Scorpius OB Association (2016, background): “The empirical mass-radius relationship is more reliable than the HR diagram, as masses and radii can be measured directly (e.g.,Andersen 1991; Torres et al. 2010).”
PHYSICS OF ECLIPSING BINARIES. II. TOWARD THE INCREASED MODEL FIDELITY (2016, background): “Their uniquely important role in determining fundamental stellar parameters (Popper 1980) anddistances (Pietrzyński et al. 2013),and providing rigorous tests for stellar evolution models (Torres et al. 2010) have been widely appreciated.”
The California-Kepler Survey. I. High-resolution Spectroscopy of 1305 Stars Hosting Kepler Transiting Planets (2017, methodology): “Such combination sare inconsistent with the observed masses and radii of normal stars (Torres et al. 2010), so we adopt the SpecMatch values for KOI-1353, KOI-1963, KOI-3928, and KOI-4699 for all parameters.”
Hubble Space Telescope hot Jupiter transmission spectral survey: a detection of Na and strong optical absorption in HAT-P-1b (2013, methodology): “For the main quantities that originate from a pure light curve fit: orbital inclination (i), normalised semimajor axis (a/R∗), and stellar density (ρ∗) our results differ with those of Torres et al. (2010) at the ∼ 2σ level.”
REVISED STELLAR PROPERTIES OF KEPLER TARGETS FOR THE QUARTER 1–16 TRANSIT DETECTION RUN (2013, methodology): “A comparison with the radii and masses as given in the Q1–Q16 catalog is shown in Figure 11 for the mass range in which the Torres et al. (2010) relations are valid.”