The Effective Temperatures of Hot Stars II. The Early-O Types

Abstract

We derive the stellar parameters of a sample of Galactic early-O type stars by analysing their UV and Far-UV spectra from FUSE (905-1187A), IUE, HST-STIS and ORFEUS (1200-2000A). The data have been modeled with spherical, hydrodynamic, line-blanketed, non-LTE synthetic spectra computed with the WM-basic code. We obtain effective temperatures ranging from Teff = 41,000 K to 39,000 K for the O3-O4 dwarf stars, and Teff = 37,500 K for the only supergiant of the sample (O4 If+). Our values are lower than those from previous empirical calibrations for early-O types by up to 20%. The derived luminosities of the dwarf stars are also lower by 6 to 12%; however, the luminosity of the supergiant is in agreement with previous calibrations within the error bars. Our results extend the trend found for later-O types in a previous work by Bianchi & Garcia.

Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. 38 pages (including 9 figures and 4 tables)