Wilson-Bappu Effect: Extended to Surface Gravity

Wilson and Bappu found a tight correlation between the stellar absolute visual magnitude (MV) and the width of the Ca II K emission line for late-type stars in 1957. Here, we revisit the Wilson-Bappu relationship (hereafter, WBR) to claim that WBR can be an excellent indicator of stellar surface gravity of late-type stars as well as a distance indicator. We have measured the width (W) of the Ca II K emission line in high resolution spectra of 125 late-type stars, which were obtained with Bohyunsan Optical Echelle Spectrograph (BOES) and adopted from the UVES archive. Based on our measurement of the emission line width (W), we have obtained a WBR of $M_V=33.76-18.00{\log}W$. In order to extend the WBR to be a surface gravity indicator, the stellar atmospheric parameters such as effective temperature ($T_{eff}$), surface gravity (logg), metallicity ([Fe/H]), and micro-turbulence (${\xi}_{tur}$) have been derived from the self-consistent detailed analysis using the Kurucz stellar atmospheric model and the abundance analysis code, MOOG. Using these stellar parameters and logW, we found that ${\log}g=-5.85\;{\log}W+9.97\;{\log}T_{eff}-23.48$ for late-type stars.