ECLIPSING BINARY STARS AS BENCHMARKS FOR TRIGONOMETRIC PARALLAXES IN THE GAIA ERA

By Keivan G. Stassun, G. Torres. 2016

152 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present fits to the broadband photometric spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 158 eclipsing binaries (EBs) in the Tycho-2 catalog. These EBs were selected because they have highly precise stellar radii, effective temperatures, and in many cases metallicities previously determined in the literature, and thus have bolometric luminosities that are typically good to ≲10%. In most cases the available broadband photometry spans a wavelength range 0.4–10 μm, and in many cases spans 0.15–22 μm. The resulting SED fits, which have only extinction as a free parameter, provide a virtually model-independent measure of the bolometric flux at Earth. The SED fits are satisfactory for 156 of the EBs, for which we achieve typical precisions in the bolometric flux of ≈3%. Combined with the accurately known bolometric luminosity, the result for each EB is a predicted parallax that is typically precise to ≲5%. These predicted parallaxes—with typical uncertainties of 200 μas—are 4–5 times more precise than those determined by Hipparcos for 99 of the EBs in our sample, with which we find excellent agreement. There is no evidence among this sample for significant systematics in the Hipparcos parallaxes of the sort that notoriously afflicted the Pleiades measurement. The EBs are distributed over the entire sky, span more than 10 mag in brightness, reach distances of more than 5 kpc, and in many cases our predicted parallaxes should also be more precise than those expected from the Gaia first data release. The EBs studied here can thus serve as empirical, independent benchmarks for these upcoming fundamental parallax measurements.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d759a16f3c4fb370026d2c677f23ccc7375b9c19

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. D. Huber
2. D. Stello
3. W. Chaplin
4. Keivan G. Stassun
5. J. V. van Saders
6. T. Bedding
7. J. Tayar
8. B. Mosser

In Instrumentation

1. D. Huber
2. D. Stello
3. Keivan G. Stassun
4. W. Chaplin
5. J. V. van Saders
6. T. Bedding
7. G. Torres
8. B. Mosser

Citations in the corpus

• StarHorse : a Bayesian tool for determining stellar masses, ages, distances, and extinctions for field stars (2017, methodology): “The StarHorse distances are in general underestimated in relation to the ones estimated by Stassun & Torres (2016).”
• Accurate Empirical Radii and Masses of Planets and Their Host Stars with Gaia Parallaxes (2016, methodology): “Stassun & Torres (2016a) found no evidence for systematic effects in any of the other passbands, although individual outlier cases do occur; see Section 2.5.”
• A Guide to Realistic Uncertainties on the Fundamental Properties of Solar-type Exoplanet Host Stars (2020, methodology): “…from broadband photometry in combination with model atmospheres (SED fitting, e.g. van Belle & von Braun 2009; Huber et al. 2012; Mann et al. 2013; Stassun & Torres 2016) or by applying bolometric corrections derived from model atmospheres (e.g. Alonso et al. 2004; Torres 2010; Casagrande &…”
• Evidence for a Systematic Offset of −80 μas in the Gaia DR2 Parallaxes (2018, methodology): “In order to perform an independent assessment of the Gaia parallaxes, Stassun & Torres (2016a) assembled a sample of 158 eclipsing binary stars (EBs) whose radii and effective temperatures are known empirically and precisely, such that their bolometric luminosities are determined to high precision…”
• The APOGEE-2 Survey of the Orion Star-forming Complex. II. Six-dimensional Structure (2018, methodology): “Stellar radius via spectral energy distributions The observed APOGEE spectra have been fitted by the method discussed by Stassun & Torres (2016) and Stassun et al. (2017), in which a star’s angular radius, Θ, can be determined empirically through the stellar bolometric flux, Fbol, and effective…”
• Asteroseismology and Gaia: Testing Scaling Relations Using 2200 Kepler Stars with TGAS Parallaxes (2017, methodology): “Figure 6 also shows the proposed corrections by Stassun & Torres (2016b) derived from eclipsing binaries.”