Metallicity of M dwarfs - I. A photometric calibration and the impact on the mass-luminosity relation at the bottom of the main sequence

By X. Bonfils, X. Delfosse, S. Udry, Nuno C. Santos, T. Forveille, Damien Ségransan. 2005

182 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We obtained high resolution ELODIE and CORALIE spectra for both components of 20 wide visual binaries composed of an F-, G- or K-dwarf primary and an M-dwarf secondary. We analyse the well-understood spectra of the primaries to determine metallicities ([Fe/H]) for these 20 systems, and hence for their M dwarf components. We pool these metallicities with determinations from the literature to obtain a precise ( ± 0.2 dex) photometric calibration of M dwarf metallicities. This calibration represents a breakthrough in a field where discussions have had to remain largely qualitative, and it helps us demonstrate that metallicity explains most of the large dispersion in the empirical V -band mass-luminosity relation. We examine the metallicity of the two known M-dwarf planet-host stars, Gl 876 (+0.02 dex) and Gl 436 (-0.03 dex), in the context of preferential planet formation around metal-rich stars. We finally determine the metallicity of the 47 brightest single M dwarfs in a volume-limited sample, and compare the metallicity distributions of solar-type and M-dwarf stars in the solar neighbourhood.

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a66a7936fa460fac0ee9910d2654688790b47795

How researchers see this paper

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1. A. Mann
2. J. Johnson
3. D. Charbonneau
4. E. Gaidos
5. Nuno C. Santos
6. M. Perryman
7. Luca Casagrande
8. E. Newton

Citations in the corpus

• The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets - XXXI. The M-dwarf sample (2011, background): “• Gl 581 : That system counts at least four planets, which we reported in three papers : Bonfils et al. (2005); Udry & Santos (2007); Mayor et al. (2009).”
• PROSPECTING IN LATE-TYPE DWARFS: A CALIBRATION OF INFRARED AND VISIBLE SPECTROSCOPIC METALLICITIES OF LATE K AND M DWARFS SPANNING 1.5 dex (2012, methodology): “Since these stars presumably formed from the same molecular cloud, the metallicity of the M dwarf companion can be assumed to be the same as that of the FGK primary (Bonfils et al. 2005).”
• IDENTIFYING THE YOUNG LOW-MASS STARS WITHIN 25 PC. I. SPECTROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS (2009, background): “Unfortunately, measuring metallicities directly from atomic lines in M dwarf spectra remains difficult and calibration errors usually range from 0.2–0.3 dex and are likely higher (e.g., Bonfils et al. 2005; Woolf & Wallerstein 2006; Bean et al. 2006).”
• M dwarfs: effective temperatures, radii and metallicities (2008, methodology): “Bonfils et al. (2005) have measured the metallicity in 20 binary systems, having an M dwarf secondary and a warmer primary (for which a metallicity is much more readily obtained).”
• HOW TO CONSTRAIN YOUR M DWARF: MEASURING EFFECTIVE TEMPERATURE, BOLOMETRIC LUMINOSITY, MASS, AND RADIUS (2015, background): “This effect has been seen previously when fitting mass–luminosity relations (Delfosse et al. 2000) and even exploited to estimate metallicities of M dwarfs (e.g., Bonfils et al. 2005; Schlaufman & Laughlin 2010; Neves et al. 2012).”
• New constraints on the chemical evolution of the solar neighbourhood and galactic disc(s) - improved astrophysical parameters for the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey (2011, result): “As a side remark, we note that the MDF determined from M dwarfs (Bonfils et al. 2005; Casagrande et al. 2008; Casagrande 2008) is likely to peak Table 1.”
• On the Correlation between the Magnetic Activity Levels, Metallicities, and Radii of Low-Mass Stars (2007, background): “Efforts to derive accurate metallicities of M dwarfs are currently under way (see Bonfils et al. 2005; Woolf &Wallerstein 2005; Bean et al. 2006).”
• A New Planet around an M Dwarf: Revealing a Correlation between Exoplanets and Stellar Mass (2007, methodology): “…al. 2007); the inner, MP sin i = 5.9 M⊕ planet around GJ 876 (Rivera et al. 2005); the MP sin i = 11 M⊕ planet orbiting GJ 674 (Bonfils et al. 2007); and the triple system orbiting GJ 581, which consists of planets with minimum masses 16.6 M⊕, 5 M⊕ and 8 M⊕ (Bonfils et al. 2005b; Udry et al. 2007).”
• METALLICITY AND TEMPERATURE INDICATORS IN M DWARF K-BAND SPECTRA: TESTING NEW AND UPDATED CALIBRATIONS WITH OBSERVATIONS OF 133 SOLAR NEIGHBORHOOD M DWARFS (2011, background): “…and host-star metallicity is well established for FGK-dwarfs (Gonzalez 1997; Santos et al. 2004; Valenti & Fischer 2005), but the first investigations to examine if the planet-metallicity correlation extended to M dwarf hosts returned mixed results (Bonfils et al. 2005a; Bean et al. 2006b).”
• The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets. X. A m sin i = 11 M_â planet around the nearby spotted M dwarf GJ 674 (2007, methodology): “Our photometric calibration of M dwarf metallicity (Bonfils et al. 2005b) gives respective metallicities of [Fe/H] = −0.03, −0.25, +0.14, +0.03, and −0.28 for GJ 436, GJ 581, GJ 849, GJ 876, and GJ 674.”
• CHARACTERIZING THE COOL KOIs. II. THE M DWARF KOI-254 AND ITS HOT JUPITER (2011, methodology): “The metallicity dependence of the mass-luminosity relationship in optical bands provides a means of estimating stellar metallicities using broadband photometry (Bonfils et al. 2005; Johnson et al. 2009; Schlaufman & Laughlin 2010).”
• Tidal obliquity evolution of potentially habitable planets (2011, methodology): “For both models we find insignificant decreases in e during the lifetime of the system, which has been estimated to & 2 Gyr (Bonfils et al. 2005b) and≈ 4.3 Gyr (Vogt et al. 2010).”
• Exploring the Frequency of Close-in Jovian Planets around M Dwarfs (2006, methodology): “Bonfils et al. (2005b) reported the detection of a Neptune-mass companion to the southern M3 V star GJ 581.”
• SWEET-Cat: A catalogue of parameters for Stars With ExoplanETs - I. New atmospheric parameters and masses for 48 stars with planets (2013, background): “Iis now widely accepted that the frequency of giant planets orbiting (lower mass) M-dwarfs is considerably lower than the one found for FGK dwarfs (Bonfils et al. 2005b, 2011; Endl et al. 2006), at least regarding the short period domain (Neves et al. 2013).”