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

TL;DR

This paper compiles highly accurate stellar masses and radii from binary systems, enabling improved stellar models, empirical calibrations, and insights into tidal evolution, with implications for exoplanet host star characterization.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive, high-precision dataset of stellar parameters and develops empirical relations for single stars, enhancing stellar evolution testing and exoplanet studies.

Findings

95 binary systems with 190 stars meet 3% accuracy criteria

Empirical M and R calibrations achieve 6% and 3% errors

Good agreement with stellar models and transiting exoplanet host stars

Abstract

This paper 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 alpha Centauri) that satisfy our criterion that the mass and radius of both stars be known to 3% or better. 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. We discuss the use of this information for testing models of stellar evolution. 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. The new data also enable us to derive empirical calibrations of M and R for single (post-) main-sequence stars above 0.6 M(Sun). Simple, polynomial functions of T(eff), log g and [Fe/H] yield M and R with 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 T(eff) and [Fe/H]. Finally, we list a set of 23 interferometric binaries with masses known to better than 3%, but without fundamental radius determinations (except alpha Aur). We discuss the prospects for improving these and other stellar parameters in the near future.