On the effective temperatures and surface gravities of superficially normal main sequence band B and A stars

¹ Department of Physics, The Citadel, 171 Moultrie Street, Charleston, SC 29409, USA
² Guest Investigator, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada, 5071 W. Saanich Road, Victoria V9E 2E7 Canada
³ Departamento de Fisica, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Tecnologia, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Av. Independencia 1800, 4000 San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina
⁴ Member of the Carrera del Investigador Científico, CONICET, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas de la República Argentina

Corresponding author: Saul J. Adelman, adelmans@citadel.edu

Received: 26 February 2002
Accepted: 12 June 2002

Abstract

Effective temperatures and surface gravities for 48 main sequence band B and A stars were found by matching optical region spectrophotometry and Hγ profiles with the predictions of ATLAS9 solar composition model atmospheres. When these values were compared with those found using Strömgren uvby β photometry based on ATLAS6 model atmospheres, we found a difference (photometry-spectrophotometry) of  K for 29 stars with 8000 K ≤ T_eff ≤ 10 050 K compared to 76 ± 105 K for 14 stars with 10 050 K ≤ T_eff ≤ 17 000 K. The surface gravity scales are in agreement. These stars are sufficiently hot that their effective temperatures and surface gravity determinations are unaffected by discrepancies due to the choice of Mixing-Length or Canuto-Mazzitelli convection theories.