Hubble Space Telescope Spectrophotometry and Models for Solar Analogs

Abstract

Absolute flux distributions for seven solar analog stars are measured from 0.3 to 2.5 μm by Hubble Space Telescope (HST) spectrophotometry. In order to predict the longer wavelength mid-IR fluxes that are required for James Webb Space Telescope calibration, the HST spectral energy distributions are fit with Castelli & Kurucz model atmospheres; and the results are compared with fits from the MARCS model grid. The rms residuals in 10 broadband bins are all <0.5% for the best fits from both model grids. However, the fits differ systematically: the MARCS fits are 40-100 K hotter in T _eff, 0.25-0.80 higher in log g, 0.01-0.10 higher in log z, and 0.008-0.021 higher in the reddening E(B - V), probably because their specifications include different metal abundances. Despite these differences in the parameters of the fits, the predicted mid-IR fluxes differ by only ~1%; and the modeled flux distributions of these G stars have an estimated ensemble accuracy of 2% out to 30 μm.