An Empirical UBVRIJHK Color-Temperature Calibration for Stars

Abstract

A collection of Johnson/Cousins photometry for stars with known [Fe/H] is used to generate color-color relations that include the abundance dependence. Literature temperature and bolometric correction dependences are attached to the color relations. The main result of this work is the tabulation of seven colors and the V-band bolometric correction as a function of Teff, log g, and [Fe/H] for -1.06 < V-K < 10.2 and an accompanying interpolation program. Improvements to the present calibration would involve filling photometry gaps, obtaining more accurate and on-system photometry, knowing better log g and [Fe/H] values, improving the statistics for data-impoverished groups of stars such as K dwarfs, applying small tweaks in the processing pipeline, and obtaining better empirical temperature and bolometric correction relations, especially for supergiants and M stars. A way to estimate dust extinction from M dwarf colors is pointed out.