Revising the properties of low mass eclipsing binary stars using TESS light curves

TL;DR

This study uses TESS light curves and radial velocity data to improve measurements of low-mass eclipsing binaries, providing new fundamental parameters and insights into radius inflation in low-mass stars.

Contribution

It presents the first measurements of properties for two systems and nearly triples the number of effective temperature measurements for M-dwarfs.

Findings

Most stars are on the main sequence, confirming radius inflation.

Precise age estimation is crucial for understanding inflation.

Luminosity appears unaffected by radius inflation, but results are inconclusive.

Abstract

Precise measurements of stellar parameters are required in order to develop our theoretical understanding of stellar structure. These measurements enable errors and uncertainties to be quantified in theoretical models and constrain the physical interpretation of observed phenomena, such as the inflated radii of low-mass stars. We use newly-available TESS light curves combined with published radial velocity measurements to improve the characterization of 12 low mass eclipsing binaries composed of an M~dwarf accompanied by a brighter F/G star. We present and analyse ground-based simultaneous four-colour photometry for two targets. Our results include the first measurements of the fundamental properties of two of the systems. Light curve and radial velocity information were converted into the physical parameters of each component of the systems using an isochrone fitting method. We also derive the effective temperatures of the M~dwarfs, almost tripling the number of such measurements. The results are discussed in the context of radius inflation. We find that exquisite precision in the age estimation of young objects is required to determine their inflation status. However, all but three of the objects are securely located among the main sequence, demonstrating radius inflation and the necessity to develop our understanding of the complex physical processes governing the evolution of low-mass stars. We investigated the hypothesis that luminosity is unaffected by the inflation problem but the findings were not conclusive.