The Solar Neighborhood XXIX: The Habitable Real Estate of our Nearest Stellar Neighbors
Justin R. Cantrell, Todd J. Henry, Russel J. White

TL;DR
This study assesses the habitable zones around nearby stars, finding M dwarfs offer the most habitable real estate and identifying several systems with potential Earth-like planets within their habitable zones.
Contribution
It introduces an empirical formula for predicting habitable zone locations based on V-K color and evaluates habitable real estate around stars within 10 parsecs.
Findings
M stars provide 36.5% of habitable real estate
Three M dwarfs within 10 pc host planets in their habitable zones
GJ 581, GJ 667 C, and GJ 876 have potential habitable planets
Abstract
We use the sample of known stars and brown dwarfs within 5 pc of the Sun, supplemented with AFGK stars within 10 pc, to determine which stellar spectral types provide the most habitable real estate --- defined to be locations where liquid water could be present on Earth-like planets. Stellar temperatures and radii are determined by fitting model spectra to spatially resolved broad-band photometric energy distributions for stars in the sample. The locations of the HZ's are calculated using an empirical formula for planetary surface temperature and assuming the condition of liquid water, called here the empirical habitable zone, or EHZ. Systems that have dynamically disruptive companions, assuming a 5:1 separation ratios for primary/secondary pairs and either object and a planet, are considered not habitable. We then derive a simple formula to predict the location of the EHZ for main…
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