HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE SPECTROPHOTOMETRY AND MODELS FOR SOLAR ANALOGS

Absolute flux distributions for seven solar analog stars are measured from 0.3 to 2.5 mu m 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 similar to 1%; and the modeled flux distributions of these G stars have an estimated ensemble accuracy of 2% out to 30 mu m.