Determination of Atmospheric Parameters of T Tauri Stars

R. Piorno Schiavon, C. Batalha, B. Barbuy

Published 1995-02-02, updated 1995-02-03Version 2

The inferred effective temperatures (T$_{\rm eff}$) and surface gravities of T Tauri stars (TTS) are usually contaminated by the presence of a non stellar continuum emission (veiling) and the strong chromospheric activity characteristic of these objects. In this work, we develop a method to determine T$_{\rm eff}$'s and surface gravities (log$\,g$) of a group of TTS. This method is based on the comparison between observed and theoretical molecular and atomic line depth ratios being therefore insensitive to the influence of veiling. We show the strong dependence of our line depth ratios upon gravity and temperature. The resulting gravities, as expected for TTS, average between the values of dwarf and giant stars. Previously published gravities for each of our stars vary widely due in part to the differences in the adopted visual extinction, veiling (if ever considered) and methods of assessing the stellar luminosity. Our values of T$_{\rm eff}$ and log$\,g$ have the uniqueness of being entirely derived from high resolution data and are not affected by circumstellar extinction or veiling when line ratios are used. They therefore serve as more reliable input parameters for future spectral synthesis analyses of T Tauri Stars requiring model atmospheres. We provide a table relating theoretical line depth ratio with T$_{\rm eff}$ and log $\,g$ for easy assessment of TTS fundamental parameters.