Comparison of Hipparcos Trigonometric and Mount Wilson Spectroscopic Parallaxes for 90 Subgiants that Defined the Class in 1935

TL;DR

This study compares historical Mount Wilson spectroscopic parallaxes with modern Hipparcos trigonometric parallaxes for 90 subgiants, confirming the validity of the original classifications and supporting a revised understanding of stellar evolution.

Contribution

It provides a star-by-star comparison validating the Mount Wilson subgiant classifications using Hipparcos data, resolving historical biases and confirming the existence of subgiants.

Findings

Mount Wilson subgiants align with Hipparcos subgiant sequence in HR diagram.

No significant offset between spectroscopic and trigonometric parallaxes for reliable stars.

Supports the theory that subgiants are post-main-sequence stars, challenging earlier models.

Abstract

A history is given of the discovery between 1914 and 1935 of stars of intermediate luminosity between giants and dwarfs with spectral types between G0 to K3. The Mt Wilson spectroscopists identified about 90 such stars in their 1935 summary paper of spectroscopic absolute magnitudes for 4179 stars. Called "subgiants" by Str\"omberg, these 90 stars defined the group at the time. The position of the Mt Wilson subgiants in the HR diagram caused difficulties in comparisons of high weight trigonometric parallaxes being measured and with Russell's prevailing evolution proposal, and critics questioned the reality of the Mt Wilson subgiants. We compare, star-by-star, the Mt Wilson spectroscopic absolute magnitudes of the 90 stars defining their sample against those absolute magnitudes derived from Hipparcos (HIP) trigonometric parallaxes. We address concerns over biases in the Mt Wilson calibration sample and biases created by the adopted methodology for calibration. Historically, these concerns were sufficient to discredit the discovery of subgiants in the Mt Wilson sample. However, as shown here, the majority of the Mount Wilson stars identified as subgiants that also have reliable HIP trigonometric parallaxes do lie among the subgiant sequence in the HIP HR diagram. Moreover, no significant offset is seen between the M(V) brightnesses derived from the Mt Wilson spectroscopic parallaxes and the M(V) values derived from Hipparcos trigonometric parallaxes with a fractional error of 10%, which confirms in an impressive manner the efficacy of the original Mt Wilson assessments. The existence of subgiants proved that Russell's contraction proposal for stellar evolution from giants to the main sequence was incorrect. Instead, Gamow's 1944 unpublished conjecture that subgiants are post main-sequence stars just having left the main sequence was very nearly correct but was a decade before its time.