Metallicity and absolute magnitude calibrations for F-G type main-sequence stars in the Gaia era

TL;DR

This paper develops new photometric calibrations for metallicity and absolute magnitude of F-G main-sequence stars using Gaia data, improving accuracy over previous methods.

Contribution

It introduces updated calibrations based on a large sample of stars with precise Gaia data, enhancing the accuracy of metallicity and magnitude estimations.

Findings

Calibrations are valid for -2< [Fe/H] < 0.5 dex and 2.5<M_V<6 mag.

Mean differences between original and estimated values are near zero.

New calibrations outperform previous literature in precision.

Abstract

In this study, photometric metallicity and absolute magnitude calibrations were derived using F-G spectral type main-sequence stars in the Solar neighbourhood with precise spectroscopic, photometric and Gaia astrometric data for UBV photometry. The sample consists of 504 main-sequence stars covering the temperature, surface gravity and colour index intervals $5300<T_{eff} < 7300$ K, $\log g > 4$ (cgs) and $0.3<(B-V)_0<0.8$ mag, respectively. Stars with relative trigonometric parallax errors $\sigma_{\pi}/\pi\leq0.01$ were preferred from Gaia DR2 data for the estimation of their $M_V$ absolute magnitudes. In order to obtain calibrations, $(U-B)_0$ and $(B-V)_0$ colour indices of stars were preferred and a multi-variable second order equation was used. Calibrations are valid for main-sequence stars in the metallicity and absolute magnitude ranges $-2<{\rm [Fe/H]}<0.5$ dex and $2.5<M_V<6$ mag, respectively. The mean value and standard deviation of the differences between original and estimated values for the metal abundance and absolute magnitude are $\langle\Delta {\rm[Fe/H]}\rangle=0.00\pm0.11$ dex and $\langle\Delta M_V \rangle=0.00\pm0.22$ mag, respectively. In this work, it has been shown that more precise iron abundance and absolute magnitude values were obtained with the new calibrations, compared to previous calibrations in the literature.