Determining the physical properties of the B stars. I. Methodology and first results

We describe a new approach to fitting the UV-to-optical spectra of B stars to model atmospheres and present initial results. Using a sample of lightly reddened stars, we demonstrate that the Kurucz model atmospheres can produce excellent fits to either combined low-dispersion IUE and optical photometry or HST FOS spectrophotometry, as long as the following conditions are fulfilled: (1) an extended grid of Kurucz models is employed; (2) the IUE NEWSIPS data are placed on the FOS absolute flux system using the Massa & Fitzpatrick transformation; (3) and all of the model parameters and the effects of interstellar extinction are solved for simultaneously. When these steps are taken, the temperatures, gravities, abundances, and microturbulence velocities of lightly reddened B0-A0 V stars are determined to high precision. We also demonstrate that the same procedure can be used to fit the energy distributions of stars that are reddened by any UV extinction curve that can be expressed by the Fitzpatrick & Massa parameterization scheme. We present an initial set of results and verify our approach through comparisons with angular diameter measurements and the parameters derived for an eclipsing B-star binary. We demonstrate that the metallicity derived from the ATLAS9 fits to main-sequence B stars is essentially the Fe abundance. We find that a near zero microturbulence velocity provides the best fit to all but the hottest or most luminous stars (where it may become a surrogate for atmospheric expansion) and that the use of white dwarfs to calibrate UV spectrophotometry is valid.