MEASURING DETAILED CHEMICAL ABUNDANCES FROM CO-ADDED MEDIUM-RESOLUTION SPECTRA. I. TESTS USING MILKY WAY DWARF SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES AND GLOBULAR CLUSTERS
- Department of Astronomy, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian, Beijing 100871 (China)
- Department of Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Mail Stop 249-17, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- University of California Observatories/Lick Observatory, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
- Harker School, 500 Saratoga Avenue, San Jose, CA 95129 (United States)
The ability to measure metallicities and {alpha}-element abundances in individual red giant branch (RGB) stars using medium-resolution spectra (R Almost-Equal-To 6000) is a valuable tool for deciphering the nature of Milky Way dwarf satellites and the history of the Galactic halo. Extending such studies to more distant systems like Andromeda is beyond the ability of the current generation of telescopes, but by co-adding the spectra of similar stars, we can attain the necessary signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) to make detailed abundance measurements. In this paper, we present a method to determine metallicities and {alpha}-element abundances using the co-addition of medium-resolution spectra. We test the method of spectral co-addition using high-S/N spectra of more than 1300 RGB stars from Milky Way globular clusters and dwarf spheroidal galaxies obtained with the Keck II telescope/DEIMOS spectrograph. We group similar stars using photometric criteria and compare the weighted ensemble average abundances ([Fe/H], [Mg/Fe], [Si/Fe], [Ca/Fe], and [Ti/Fe]) of individual stars in each group with the measurements made on the corresponding co-added spectrum. We find a high level of agreement between the two methods, which permits us to apply this co-added spectra technique to more distant RGB stars, like stars in the M31 satellite galaxies. This paper outlines our spectral co-addition and abundance measurement methodology and describes the potential biases in making these measurements.
- OSTI ID:
- 22126894
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 768, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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