Confirming Fundamental Parameters of the Exoplanet Host Star epsilon Eridani Using the Navy Optical Interferometer

TL;DR

This study precisely measured the angular diameter of epsilon Eridani with optical interferometry, deriving key stellar parameters and refining the exoplanet's mass and habitable zone estimates.

Contribution

It provides new, accurate measurements of epsilon Eridani's physical properties using optical interferometry combined with stellar models, improving exoplanet characterization.

Findings

Stellar radius and temperature accurately determined

Exoplanet mass refined to 1.53 +/- 0.22 Jupiter masses

Habitable zone estimated based on new stellar parameters

Abstract

We measured the angular diameter of the exoplanet host star epsilon Eridani using the Navy Optical Interferometer. We determined its physical radius, effective temperature, and mass by combining our measurement with the star's parallax, photometry from the literature, and the Yonsei-Yale isochrones (Yi et al. 2001), respectively. We used the resulting stellar mass of 0.82 +/- 0.05 M_Sun plus the mass function from Benedict et al. (2006) to calculate the planet's mass, which is 1.53 +/- 0.22 M_Jupiter. Using our new effective temperature, we also estimated the extent of the habitable zone for the system.