TY - JOUR
T1 - The EBLM project X. Benchmark masses, radii and temperatures for two fully convective M-dwarfs using K2
AU - Duck, Alison
AU - Martin, David V.
AU - Gill, Sam
AU - Armitage, Tayt
AU - Martínez, Romy Rodríguez
AU - Maxted, Pierre F. L.
AU - Sebastian, Daniel
AU - Sethi, Ritika
AU - Swayne, Matthew I.
AU - Cameron, Andrew Collier
AU - Dransfield, Georgina
AU - Gaudi, B. Scott
AU - Gillon, Michael
AU - Hellier, Coel
AU - Kunovac, Vedad
AU - Lovis, Christophe
AU - McCormac, James
AU - Pepe, Francesco A.
AU - Pollacco, Don
AU - Sairam, Lalitha
AU - Santerne, Alexandre
AU - Ségransan, Damien
AU - Standing, Matthew R.
AU - Southworth, John
AU - Triaud, Amaury H. M. J.
AU - Udry, Stephane
N1 - Funding: Support for AD was provided by NASA TESS Guest Investigator Programs for Cycle 4 (G04157) and Cycle 2(G022253). Support for DVM was provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant HF2-51464 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. This research is also supported work funded from the European Research Council (ERC) the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n◦803193/BEBOP). Partial support for AD, RRM, and BSG was provided by the Thomas Jefferson Chair Endowment for Discovery and Space Exploration. MIS acknowledges support from STFC grant number ST/T506175/1.
PY - 2023/6/1
Y1 - 2023/6/1
N2 - M-dwarfs are the most abundant stars in the galaxy and popular targets for exoplanet searches. However, their intrinsic faintness and complex spectra inhibit precise characterisation. We only know of dozens of M-dwarfs with fundamental parameters of mass, radius and effective temperature characterised to better than a few per cent. Eclipsing binaries remain the most robust means of stellar characterisation. Here we present two targets from the Eclipsing Binary Low Mass (EBLM) survey that were observed with K2: EBLM J0055-00 and EBLM J2217-04. Combined with HARPS and CORALIE spectroscopy, we measure M-dwarf masses with precisions better than 5%, radii better than 3% and effective temperatures on order 1%. However, our fits require invoking a model to derive parameters for the primary star. By investigating three popular models, we determine that the model uncertainty is of similar magnitude to the statistical uncertainty in the model fits. Therefore, whilst these can be considered benchmark M-dwarfs, we caution the community to consider model uncertainty when pushing the limits of precise stellar characterisation.
AB - M-dwarfs are the most abundant stars in the galaxy and popular targets for exoplanet searches. However, their intrinsic faintness and complex spectra inhibit precise characterisation. We only know of dozens of M-dwarfs with fundamental parameters of mass, radius and effective temperature characterised to better than a few per cent. Eclipsing binaries remain the most robust means of stellar characterisation. Here we present two targets from the Eclipsing Binary Low Mass (EBLM) survey that were observed with K2: EBLM J0055-00 and EBLM J2217-04. Combined with HARPS and CORALIE spectroscopy, we measure M-dwarf masses with precisions better than 5%, radii better than 3% and effective temperatures on order 1%. However, our fits require invoking a model to derive parameters for the primary star. By investigating three popular models, we determine that the model uncertainty is of similar magnitude to the statistical uncertainty in the model fits. Therefore, whilst these can be considered benchmark M-dwarfs, we caution the community to consider model uncertainty when pushing the limits of precise stellar characterisation.
KW - Stars: binaries-eclipsing
KW - Low-mass
KW - Fundamental parameters
KW - Techniques: photometric
KW - Spectroscopic
U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stad452
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stad452
M3 - Article
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 521
SP - 6305
EP - 6317
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
IS - 4
M1 - stad452
ER -