Using limb darkening to measure fundamental parameters of stars

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel method that uses limb-darkening coefficients to infer fundamental stellar parameters, especially stellar mass, from observational data, enhancing the understanding of stellar atmospheres.

Contribution

The study introduces a new approach linking limb-darkening coefficients to stellar mass, enabling mass estimation from observational data without detailed atmospheric modeling.

Findings

The method accurately predicts stellar mass from limb-darkening and radius.

Limb-darkening coefficients contain significant information about stellar atmosphere structure.

Potential applications include microlensing, interferometry, and transit observations.

Abstract

Context. Limb darkening is an important tool for understanding stellar atmospheres, but most observations measuring limb darkening assume various parameterizations that yield no significant information about the structure of stellar atmospheres. Aims. We use a specific limb-darkening relation to study how the best-fit coefficients relate to fundamental stellar parameters from spherically symmetric model stellar atmospheres. Methods. Using a grid of spherically symmetric Atlas model atmospheres, we compute limb-darkening coefficients, and develop a novel method to predict fundamental stellar parameters. Results. We find our proposed method predicts the mass of stellar atmosphere models given only the radius and limb-darkening coefficients, suggesting that microlensing, interferometric, transit and eclipse observations can constrain stellar masses. Conclusions. This novel method demonstrates that limb-darkening parameterizations contain important information about the structure of stellar atmospheres, with the potential to be a valuable tool for measuring stellar masses.