A robust approach to estimate stellar angular diameters from photometry and spectral type

Abstract

Observing reference stars with a known diameter is almost the only possibility to calibrate optical interferometry observations. The JMMC Calibrator Workgroup develops methods to ascertain the angular diameter of stars since 2000 and provides this expertise in the SearchCal software and associated databases. We provide on a regularly basis the JSDC, a catalogue of such stars, and an open access to our server that dynamically finds calibrators near science objects by querying CDS hosted catalogs. Here we propose a novel approach in the estimation of angular stellar diameters based on observational quantities only. It bypasses the knowledge of the visual extinction and intrinsic colors, thanks to the use of absorption free pseudo-colors (AFC) and the spectral type number on the x-axis. This new methodology allows to compute the angular diameter of 443 703 stars with a relative precision of about 1%. This calibrator set will become after filtering the next JSDC release.