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Bayesian inference of stellar parameters and interstellar extinction using parallaxes and multiband photometry
Astrometric surveys provide the opportunity to measure the absolutemagnitudes of large numbers of stars, but only if the individualline-of-sight extinctions are known. Unfortunately, extinction is highlydegenerate with stellar effective temperature when estimated frombroad-band optical/infrared photometry. To address this problem, Iintroduce a Bayesian method for estimating the intrinsic parameters of astar and its line-of-sight extinction. It uses both photometry andparallaxes in a self-consistent manner in order to provide anon-parametric posterior probability distribution over the parameters.The method makes explicit use of domain knowledge by employing theHertzsprung-Russell Diagram (HRD) to constrain solutions and to ensurethat they respect stellar physics. I first demonstrate this method byusing it to estimate effective temperature and extinction from BVJHKdata for a set of artificially reddened Hipparcos stars, for whichaccurate effective temperatures have been estimated from high-resolutionspectroscopy. Using just the four colours, we see the expected strongdegeneracy (positive correlation) between the temperature andextinction. Introducing the parallax, apparent magnitude and the HRDreduces this degeneracy and improves both the precision (reduces theerror bars) and the accuracy of the parameter estimates, the latter byabout 35 per cent. The resulting accuracy is about 200 K in temperatureand 0.2 mag in extinction. I then apply the method to estimate theseparameters and absolute magnitudes for some 47 000 F, G, K Hipparcosstars which have been cross-matched with Two-Micron All-Sky Survey(2MASS). The method can easily be extended to incorporate the estimationof other parameters, in particular metallicity and surface gravity,making it particularly suitable for the analysis of the 109stars from Gaia.
| Improved Astrometry and Photometry for the Luyten Catalog. II. Faint Stars and the Revised Catalog
We complete construction of a catalog containing improved astrometry andnew optical/infrared photometry for the vast majority of NLTT starslying in the overlap of regions covered by POSS I and by the secondincremental Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) release, approximately 44%of the sky. The epoch 2000 positions are typically accurate to 130 mas,the proper motions to 5.5 mas yr-1, and the V-J colors to0.25 mag. Relative proper motions of binary components are measured to 3mas yr-1. The false-identification rate is ~1% for11<~V<~18 and substantially less at brighter magnitudes. Theseimprovements permit the construction of a reduced proper-motion diagramthat, for the first time, allows one to classify NLTT stars intomain-sequence (MS) stars, subdwarfs (SDs), and white dwarfs (WDs). We inturn use this diagram to analyze the properties of both our catalog andthe NLTT catalog on which it is based. In sharp contrast to popularbelief, we find that NLTT incompleteness in the plane is almostcompletely concentrated in MS stars, and that SDs and WDs are detectedalmost uniformly over the sky δ>-33deg. Our catalogwill therefore provide a powerful tool to probe these populationsstatistically, as well as to reliably identify individual SDs and WDs.
| A search for previously unrecognized metal-poor subdwarfs in the Hipparcos astrometric catalogue
We have identified 317 stars included in the Hipparcos astrometriccatalogue that have parallaxes measured to a precision of better than 15per cent, and the location of which in the(MV,(B-V)T) diagram implies a metallicitycomparable to or less than that of the intermediate-abundance globularcluster M5. We have undertaken an extensive literature search to locateStrömgren, Johnson/Cousins and Walraven photometry for over 120stars. In addition, we present new UBV(RI)C photometry of 201of these candidate halo stars, together with similar data for a further14 known metal-poor subdwarfs. These observations provide the firstextensive data set of RCIC photometry ofmetal-poor, main-sequence stars with well-determined trigonometricparallaxes. Finally, we have obtained intermediate-resolution opticalspectroscopy of 175 stars. 47 stars still lack sufficient supplementaryobservations for population classification; however, we are able toestimate abundances for 270 stars, or over 80 per cent of the sample.The overwhelming majority have near-solar abundance, with theirinclusion in the present sample stemming from errors in the colourslisted in the Hipparcos catalogue. Only 44 stars show consistentevidence of abundances below [Fe/H]=-1.0. Nine are additions to thesmall sample of metal-poor subdwarfs with accurate photometry. Weconsider briefly the implication of these results for clustermain-sequence fitting.
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Observation and Astrometry data
| Constellation: | Baleine |
| Right ascension: | 01h34m02.13s |
| Declination: | -01°41'10.0" |
| Apparent magnitude: | 9.794 |
| Proper motion RA: | 171.1 |
| Proper motion Dec: | -148.9 |
| B-T magnitude: | 10.522 |
| V-T magnitude: | 9.855 |
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