Showing papers by "Katharine J. Schlesinger published in 2017"
University of New South Wales1, University of Sydney2, Max Planck Society3, Australian National University4, Australian Astronomical Observatory5, Uppsala University6, University of Cambridge7, Macquarie University8, University of Ljubljana9, University of Notre Dame10, University of Southern Queensland11, University of Western Australia12
TL;DR: The Galactic Archaeology with HERMES (GALAH) survey as discussed by the authors is a massive observational project to trace the Milky Way's history of star formation, chemical enrichment, stellar migration and minor mergers.
Abstract: The Galactic Archaeology with HERMES (GALAH) Survey is a massive observational project to trace the Milky Way's history of star formation, chemical enrichment, stellar migration and minor mergers. Using high-resolution (R$\simeq$28,000) spectra taken with the High Efficiency and Resolution Multi-Element Spectrograph (HERMES) instrument at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT), GALAH will determine stellar parameters and abundances of up to 29 elements for up to one million stars. Selecting targets from a colour-unbiased catalogue built from 2MASS, APASS and UCAC4 data, we expect to observe dwarfs at 0.3 to 3 kpc and giants at 1 to 10 kpc. This enables a thorough local chemical inventory of the Galactic thin and thick disks, and also captures smaller samples of the bulge and halo. In this paper we present the plan, process and progress as of early 2016 for GALAH survey observations. In our first two years of survey observing we have accumulated the largest high-quality spectroscopic data set at this resolution, over 200,000 stars. We also present the first public GALAH data catalogue: stellar parameters (Teff, log(g), [Fe/H], [alpha/Fe]), radial velocity, distance modulus and reddening for 10680 observations of 9860 Tycho-2 stars that may be included in the first Gaia data release.
197 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the data reduction procedures being used by the GALactic Archeology with Hermes (GALAH) survey, carried out with the HERMES fiber-fed, multi-object spectrograph on the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope.
Abstract: We present the data reduction procedures being used by the GALactic Archeology with Hermes (GALAH) survey, carried out with the HERMES fibre-fed, multi-object spectrograph on the 3.9-m Anglo-Australian Telescope. GALAH is a unique survey, targeting 1 million stars brighter than magnitude V = 14 at a resolution of 28 000 with a goal to measure the abundances of 29 elements. Such a large number of high-resolution spectra necessitate the development of a reduction pipeline optimized for speed, accuracy, and consistency.We outline the design and structure of the IRAF-based reduction pipeline that we developed, specifically for GALAH, to produce fully calibrated spectra aimed for subsequent stellar atmospheric parameter estimation. The pipeline takes advantage of existing IRAF routines and other readily available software so as to be simple to maintain, testable, and reliable. A radial velocity and stellar atmospheric parameter estimator code is also presented, which is used for further data analysis and yields a useful verification of the reduction quality. We have used this estimator to quantify the data quality of GALAH for fibre cross-talk level (≲0.5 per cent) and scattered light (~5 counts in a typical 20 min exposure), resolution across the field, sky spectrum properties, wavelength solution reliability (better than 1 kms-1 accuracy), and radial velocity precision. (Less)
68 citations
University of Ljubljana1, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam2, University of Sydney3, Australian National University4, University of Cambridge5, Australian Astronomical Observatory6, University of New South Wales7, Mount Stromlo Observatory8, Macquarie University9, University of Southern Queensland10, University of Western Australia11, INAF12, Johns Hopkins University13, Harvard University14
TL;DR: In this article, a semi-automated classification scheme was proposed to identify different types of peculiar spectral morphologies, in an effort to discover and flag potentially problematic spectra and thus help to preserve the integrity of the survey's results.
Abstract: Galah is an ongoing high-resolution spectroscopic survey with the goal of disentangling the formation history of the Milky Way, using the fossil remnants of disrupted star formation sites which are now dispersed around the Galaxy. it is targeting a randomly selected, magnitude limited (V ≤ 14) sample of stars, with the goal of observing one million objects. To date, 300,000 spectra have been obtained. Not all of them are correctly processed by parameter estimation pipelines and we need to know about them. We present a semi-automated classification scheme which identifies different types of peculiar spectral morphologies, in an effort to discover and flag potentially problematic spectra and thus help to preserve the integrity of the survey's results. To this end we employ a recently developed dimensionality reduction technique t-SNE (t-distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding), which enables us to represent the complex spectral morphology in a two-dimensional projection map while still preserving the properties of the local neighbourhoods of spectra. We find that the majority (178,483) of the 209,533 Galah spectra considered in this study represents normal single stars, whereas 31,050 peculiar and problematic spectra with very diverse spectral features pertaining to 28,579 stars are distributed into 10 classification categories: Hot stars, Cool metal-poor giants, Molecular absorption bands, Binary stars, Ha\Hβ emission, Ha/Hβ emission superimposed on absorption, Ha/Hβ P-Cygni, Ha/Hβ inverted P-Cygni, Lithium absorption, and Problematic. Classified spectra with supplementary information are presented in the catalogue, indicating candidates for follow-up observations and population studies of the short-lived phases of stellar evolution.
61 citations