Standard stellar luminosities; what are typical and limiting accuracies in the era after Gaia?

Abstract

Methods of obtaining stellar luminosities (L) have been revised and a new concept, standard stellar luminosity, has been defined. Among the three methods (direct method from radii and effective temperatures, method using a mass-luminosity relation (MLR), and method requiring a bolometric correction), the third method, which uses the unique bolometric correction (BC) of a star extracted from a flux ratio ($f_{\mathrm{V}}/f_{\mathrm{Bol}}$) obtained from the observed spectrum with sufficient spectral coverage and resolution, is estimated to provide an uncertainty ($\hat{I}”L/L$) typically at a low percentage, which could be as accurate as 1% perhaps more. The typical and limiting uncertainties of the predicted L of the three methods were compared. The secondary methods requiring either a pre-determined non-unique BC or MLR were found to provide less accurate luminosities than the direct method, which could provide stellar luminosities with a typical accuracy of 8.2% - 12.2% while its estimated limiting accuracy is 2.5%.

10 pages, including 1 figure and 2 tables, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society