New and updated stellar parameters for 90 transit hosts. The effect of the surface gravity

TL;DR

This study provides a uniform spectroscopic and photometric analysis of 90 transiting exoplanet host stars, highlighting how different surface gravity measurements influence derived stellar and planetary parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a consistent method to derive stellar parameters and compares spectroscopic and photometric surface gravities, assessing their impact on stellar and planetary characteristics.

Findings

Photometric and spectroscopic surface gravities differ but minimally affect stellar mass estimates.

Stellar radius and planetary radius are significantly influenced by surface gravity discrepancies.

Chemical abundances from ionized lines are notably affected by gravity measurement differences.

Abstract

Context. Precise stellar parameters are crucial in exoplanet research for correctly determining of the planetary parameters. For stars hosting a transiting planet, determining of the planetary mass and radius depends on the stellar mass and radius, which in turn depend on the atmospheric stellar parameters. Different methods can provide different results, which leads to different planet characteristics.}%Spectroscopic surface gravities have shown to be poorly constrained, but the photometry of the transiting planet can provide an independent measurement of the surface gravity. Aims. In this paper, we use a uniform method to spectroscopically derive stellar atmospheric parameters, chemical abundances, stellar masses, and stellar radii for a sample of 90 transit hosts. Surface gravities are also derived photometrically using the stellar density as derived from the light curve. We study the effect of using these different surface gravities on the determination of the chemical abundances and the stellar mass and radius. Methods. A spectroscopic analysis based on Kurucz models in LTE was performed through the MOOG code to derive the atmospheric parameters and the chemical abundances. The photometric surface gravity was determined through isochrone fitting and the use of the stellar density, directly determined from the light curve. Stellar masses and radii are determined through calibration formulae. Results. Spectroscopic and photometric surface gravities differ, but this has very little effect on the precise determination of the stellar mass in our spectroscopic analysis. The stellar radius, and hence the planetary radius, is most affected by the surface gravity discrepancies. For the chemical abundances, the difference is, as expected, only noticable for the abundances derived from analyzing of lines of ionized species.