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Profile picture Diane Feuillet

Diane Feuillet

Researcher

Profile picture Diane Feuillet

ASPCAP : The APOGEE STELLAR PARAMETER and CHEMICAL ABUNDANCES PIPELINE

Author

  • Ana E. García Pérez
  • Carlos Allende Prieto
  • Jon A. Holtzman
  • Matthew Shetrone
  • Szabolcs Mészáros
  • Dmitry Bizyaev
  • Ricardo Carrera
  • Katia Cunha
  • D. A. García-Hernández
  • Jennifer A. Johnson
  • Steven R. Majewski
  • David L. Nidever
  • Ricardo P. Schiavon
  • Neville Shane
  • Verne V. Smith
  • Jennifer Sobeck
  • Nicholas Troup
  • Olga Zamora
  • David H. Weinberg
  • Jo Bovy
  • Daniel J. Eisenstein
  • Diane Feuillet
  • Peter M. Frinchaboy
  • Michael R. Hayden
  • Fred R. Hearty
  • Duy C. Nguyen
  • Robert W. O'Connell
  • Marc H. Pinsonneault
  • John C. Wilson
  • Gail Zasowski
Show all

Summary, in English

The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) has built the largest moderately high-resolution (R ≈ 22,500) spectroscopic map of the stars across the Milky Way, and including dust-obscured areas. The APOGEE Stellar Parameter and Chemical Abundances Pipeline (ASPCAP) is the software developed for the automated analysis of these spectra. ASPCAP determines atmospheric parameters and chemical abundances from observed spectra by comparing observed spectra to libraries of theoretical spectra, using χ2 minimization in a multidimensional parameter space. The package consists of a fortran90 code that does the actual minimization and a wrapper IDL code for book-keeping and data handling. This paper explains in detail the ASPCAP components and functionality, and presents results from a number of tests designed to check its performance. ASPCAP provides stellar effective temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities precise to 2%, 0.1 dex, and 0.05 dex, respectively, for most APOGEE stars, which are predominantly giants. It also provides abundances for up to 15 chemical elements with various levels of precision, typically under 0.1 dex. The final data release (DR12) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III contains an APOGEE database of more than 150,000 stars. ASPCAP development continues in the SDSS-IV APOGEE-2 survey.

Publishing year

2016-06

Language

English

Publication/Series

The Astronomical Journal

Volume

151

Issue

6

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

IOP Publishing

Topic

  • Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

Keywords

  • Galaxy: center
  • Galaxy: structure
  • methods: data analysis
  • stars: abundances
  • stars: atmospheres Supporting material: machine-readable table

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0004-6256