Institution(s): 1. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
A complete understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary systems depends on the precise characterization of the planets and their host stars. The stellar mass is particularly important because it might influence the planet occurrence and it is used to constrain the planetary masses, thus providing information about the systems' architectures. Single FGK stars on the main sequence usually have precise masses estimated from evolutionary tracks, but the results of this method for subgiants and giants have recently been called into question. In this work, we describe the ongoing efforts to precisely constrain the masses of evolved stars using benchmark subgiants and giants from the literature as well as the sample of retired A stars observed by the California Planet Search survey. Different input atmospheric parameters (from excitation and ionization equilibria, spectral synthesis, interferometry and photometry) and methods (evolutionary tracks, asteroseismology and lithium abundances) are used to critically evaluate the stellar masses and its uncertainties. Preliminary results are discussed and suggest that current mass determinations for evolved stars do not present any significant systematic errors.