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Data-driven Spectroscopy of Cool Stars at High Spectral Resolution

Behmard, Aida and Petigura, Erik A. and Howard, Andrew W. (2019) Data-driven Spectroscopy of Cool Stars at High Spectral Resolution. Astrophysical Journal, 876 (1). Art. No. 68. ISSN 1538-4357. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab14e0. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190507-111647129

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Abstract

The advent of large-scale spectroscopic surveys underscores the need to develop robust techniques for determining stellar properties ("labels," i.e., physical parameters and elemental abundances). However, traditional spectroscopic methods that utilize stellar models struggle to reproduce cool (< 4700 K) stellar atmospheres due to an abundance of unconstrained molecular transitions, making modeling via synthetic spectral libraries difficult. Because small, cool stars such as K and M dwarfs are both common and good targets for finding small, cool planets, establishing precise spectral modeling techniques for these stars is of high priority. To address this, we apply The Cannon, a data-driven method of determining stellar labels, to Keck High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer spectra of 141 cool (< 5200 K) stars from the California Planet Search. Our implementation is capable of predicting labels for small (< 1 R_⊙) stars of spectral types K and later with accuracies of 68 K in effective temperature (T_(eff)), 5% in stellar radius (R_*), and 0.08 dex in bulk metallicity ([Fe/H]), and maintains this performance at low spectral resolutions (R < 5000). As M dwarfs are the focus of many future planet-detection surveys, this work can aid efforts to better characterize the cool star population and uncover correlations between cool star abundances and planet occurrence for constraining planet formation theories.


Item Type:Article
Related URLs:
URLURL TypeDescription
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab14e0DOIArticle
https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.00094arXivDiscussion Paper
ORCID:
AuthorORCID
Behmard, Aida0000-0003-0012-9093
Petigura, Erik A.0000-0003-0967-2893
Howard, Andrew W.0000-0001-8638-0320
Additional Information:© 2019. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2019 February 8; revised 2019 March 25; accepted 2019 March 28; published 2019 May 6. We thank Andrew Casey (Monash U.), Anna Ho (Caltech), and Melissa Ness (MPIA) for many useful discussions regarding The Cannon. A.B. acknowledges funding from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under grant No. DGE1745301.
Group:Astronomy Department
Funders:
Funding AgencyGrant Number
NSF Graduate Research FellowshipDGE-1745301
NASA Hubble FellowshipUNSPECIFIED
Subject Keywords:methods: data analysis; stars: fundamental parameters; stars: statistics; surveys; techniques: spectroscopic
Issue or Number:1
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/ab14e0
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:20190507-111647129
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190507-111647129
Official Citation:Aida Behmard et al 2019 ApJ 876 68
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:95300
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: George Porter
Deposited On:07 May 2019 22:09
Last Modified:16 Nov 2021 17:11

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