Calibrations of Atmospheric Parameters Obtained from the First Year of SDSS-III APOGEE Observations

Abstract

The SDSS-III Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) is a three year survey that is collecting 100,000 high-resolution spectra in the near-IR across multiple Galactic populations. To derive stellar parameters and chemical compositions from this massive data set, the APOGEE Stellar Parameters and Chemical Abundances Pipeline (ASPCAP) has been developed. Here, we describe empirical calibrations of stellar parameters presented in the first SDSS-III APOGEE data release (DR10). These calibrations were enabled by observations of 559 stars in 20 globular and open clusters. The cluster observations were supplemented by observations of stars in NASA's Kepler field that have well determined surface gravities from asteroseismic analysis. We discuss the accuracy and precision of the derived stellar parameters, considering especially effective temperature, surface gravity, and metallicity; we also briefly discuss the derived results for the abundances of the alpha-elements, carbon, and nitrogen. Overall, we find that ASPCAP achieves reasonably accurate results for temperature and metallicity, but suffers from systematic errors in surface gravity. We derive calibration relations that bring the raw ASPCAP results into better agreement with independently determined stellar parameters. The internal scatter of ASPCAP parameters within clusters suggests that, metallicities are measured with a precision better than 0.1 dex, effective temperatures better than 150 K, and surface gravities better than 0.2 dex. The understanding provided by the clusters and Kepler giants on the current accuracy and precision will be invaluable for future improvements of the pipeline.

40 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables, accepted to AJ

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Cited by in corpus (108)

• The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE)
• Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe
• The Tenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
• ASPCAP: The Apogee Stellar Parameter and Chemical Abundances Pipeline
• Chemical Cartography with APOGEE: Metallicity Distribution Functions and the Chemical Structure of the Milky Way Disk
• The GALAH+ Survey: Third Data Release
• The Thirteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-IV Survey MApping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory
• APOGEE Data and Spectral Analysis from SDSS Data Release 16: Seven Years of Observations Including First Results from APOGEE-South
• Revised Stellar Properties of Kepler Targets for the Quarter 1-16 Transit Detection Run
• The Data Reduction Pipeline for the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
• Abundances, Stellar Parameters, and Spectra From the SDSS-III/APOGEE Survey
• The Cannon: A data-driven approach to stellar label determination
• The APOKASC Catalog: An Asteroseismic and Spectroscopic Joint Survey of Targets in the Kepler Fields
• The Second APOKASC Catalog: The Empirical Approach
• Gaia FGK Benchmark Stars: Effective temperatures and surface gravities
• Target Selection for the SDSS-IV APOGEE-2 Survey
• Red giant masses and ages derived from carbon and nitrogen abundances
• The APOGEE red-clump catalog: Precise distances, velocities, and high-resolution elemental abundances over a large area of the Milky Way's disk
• The Payne: self-consistent ab initio fitting of stellar spectra
• The stellar population structure of the Galactic disk
• Chemodynamics of the Milky Way. I. The first year of APOGEE data
• Spectroscopic determination of masses (and implied ages) for red giants
• Tracing chemical evolution over the extent of the Milky Way's Disk with APOGEE Red Clump Stars
• Chemical tagging with APOGEE: Discovery of a large population of N-rich stars in the inner Galaxy
• The Milky Way's rotation curve out to 100 kpc and its constraint on the Galactic mass distribution
• Young [$\alpha$/Fe]-enhanced stars discovered by CoRoT and APOGEE: What is their origin?
• Bayesian distances and extinctions for giants observed by Kepler and APOGEE
• Chemical Cartography with APOGEE: Large-scale Mean Metallicity Maps of the Milky Way
• The SDSS-III APOGEE Spectral Line List for H-band Spectroscopy
• Homogeneous Analysis of Globular Clusters from the APOGEE Survey with the BACCHUS Code. II. The Southern Clusters and Overview
• Exploring Anticorrelations and Light Element Variations in Northern Globular Clusters Observed by the APOGEE Survey
• New H-band Stellar Spectral Libraries for the SDSS-III/APOGEE survey
• The chemical homogeneity of open clusters
• The First APOKASC Catalog of Kepler Dwarf and Subgiant Stars
• Activity indicators and stellar parameters of the Kepler targets. An application of the ROTFIT pipeline to LAMOST-Kepler stellar spectra
• Label Transfer from APOGEE to LAMOST: Precise Stellar Parameters for 450,000 LAMOST Giants
• An Application of Deep Neural Networks in the Analysis of Stellar Spectra
• Stroemgren survey for Asteroseismology and Galactic Archaeology: let the SAGA begin
• The Lazy Giants: APOGEE Abundances Reveal Low Star Formation Efficiencies in the Magellanic Clouds
• An accurate and self-consistent chemical abundance catalogue for the APOGEE/Kepler sample
• Testing the Asteroseismic Mass Scale Using Metal-Poor Stars Characterized with APOGEE and Kepler
• Spectro-photometric distances to stars: a general-purpose Bayesian approach
• Final Targeting Strategy for the SDSS-IV APOGEE-2N Survey
• Galactic Doppelganger: The chemical similarity among field stars and among stars with a common birth origin
• Chemical Abundances of Main-Sequence, Turnoff, Subgiant and red giant Stars from APOGEE spectra II: Atomic Diffusion in M67 Stars
• IN-SYNC I: Homogeneous Stellar Parameters from High Resolution APOGEE Spectra for Thousands of Pre-main Sequence Star
• Mapping the Interstellar Medium with Near-Infrared Diffuse Interstellar Bands
• APOGEE DR14/DR15 Abundances in the Inner Milky Way
• Rapid Rotation of Low-Mass Red Giants Using APOKASC: A Measure of Interaction Rates on the Post-main-sequence
• APOGEE Kinematics I: Overview of the Kinematics of the Galactic Bulge as Mapped by APOGEE
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: Kinematics of seven Galactic globular clusters
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: calibration strategy
• Companions to APOGEE Stars I: A Milky Way-Spanning Catalog of Stellar and Substellar Companion Candidates and their Diverse Hosts
• New atmospheric parameters and spectral interpolator for the MILES cool stars
• Machine Learning Regression of stellar effective temperatures in the second $Gaia$ Data Release
• Super-Solar Metallicity Stars in the Galactic Center Nuclear Star Cluster: Unusual Sc, V, and Y Abundances
• The Photometric Metallicity and Carbon Distributions of the Milky Way's Halo and Solar Neighborhood from S-PLUS Observations of SDSS Stripe 82
• Machine learning Applied to Star-Galaxy-QSO Classification and Stellar Effective Temperature Regression
• The OCCASO survey: Presentation and radial velocities of twelve Milky Way Open Clusters
• Chemical abundance gradients from open clusters in the Milky Way disk: results from the APOGEE survey
• A new catalogue of radial velocity standard stars from the APOGEE data
• The Age and Distance of the Kepler Open Cluster NGC 6811 from an Eclipsing Binary, Turnoff Star Pulsation, and Giant Asteroseismology
• Determining the Age of the Kepler Open Cluster NGC 6819 With a New Triple System and Other Eclipsing Binary Stars
• Extinction Maps towards the Milky Way Bulge: 2D and 3D Tests with APOGEE
• Open Cluster Chemical Homogeneity Throughout the Milky Way
• CAPOS: The bulge Cluster APOgee Survey I. Overview and initial ASPCAP results
• Chemo-kinematics of the Milky Way from the SDSS-III MARVELS Survey
• The Distance and the near-IR extinction of the Monoceros Supernova Remnant
• FORS2/VLT survey of Milky Way globular clusters I. Description of the method for derivation of metal abundances in the optical and application to NGC 6528, NGC 6553, M 71, NGC 6558, NGC 6426 and Terzan 8
• Cosmic variance in [O/Fe] in the Galactic disk
• The dimensionality of stellar chemical space using spectra from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
• Examining the relationships between colour, $T_{\mathrm{eff}}$, and [M/H] for APOGEE K and M dwarfs
• Chemical Abundances in a Sample of Red Giants in the Open Cluster NGC 2420 from APOGEE
• The SAGE Photometric Sky Survey: Technical Description
• Distance and extinction determination for APOGEE stars with Bayesian method
• Solar and Stellar Photospheric Abundances
• The Puzzling Li-rich Red Giant Associated with NGC 6819
• APOGEE chemical tagging constraint on the maximum star cluster mass in the $\alpha$-enhanced Galactic disk
• Timing the Evolution of the Galactic Disk with NGC 6791: An Open Cluster with Peculiar High-$\alpha$ Chemistry as seen by APOGEE
• Rotationally Driven Ultraviolet Emission of Red Giant Stars
• Core-Envelope Coupling in Intermediate-Mass Core-Helium Burning Stars
• The $Gaia$-ESO Survey: the inner disk intermediate-age open cluster NGC 6802
• The Optical -- Mid-infrared Extinction Law of the l=165 Sightline in the Galactic Plane: Diversity of Extinction Law in the Diffuse Interstellar Medium
• The spectroscopic indistinguishability of red giant branch and red clump stars
• Testing the Limits of Precise Subgiant Characterization with APOGEE and Gaia: Opening a Window to Unprecedented Astrophysical Studies
• New Red Jewels in Coma Berenices
• NLTE Analysis of High Resolution H-band Spectra. II. Neutral Magnesium
• Asteroseismology of Eclipsing Binary Stars in the Kepler Era
• Characterization of Kepler targets based on medium-resolution LAMOST spectra analyzed with ROTFIT
• On the LSP3 estimates of surface gravity for LAMOST-Kepler stars with asteroseismic measurements
• Chemo-Dynamical Clustering applied to APOGEE data: Re-Discovering Globular Clusters
• The CoRoT-GES Collaboration. Improving Red Giants spectroscopic surface gravity and abundances with asteroseismology
• Seismic analysis of HD43587Aa, a solar-like oscillator in a multiple system
• Testing the chemical homogeneity of chemically tagged dissolved birth clusters
• Machine Learning Regression of extinction in the second $Gaia$ Data Release
• Line-depth ratios as indicators of effective temperature and surface gravity
• Lithium in Kepler Red Giants: Defining Normal and Anomalous
• Carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars in the SDSS-APOGEE database
• Probing 3D and NLTE models using APOGEE observations of globular cluster stars
• The GALAH Survey: Stellar parameters and abundances for 800,000 Gaia RVS spectra using GALAH DR4 and The Cannon
• Measuring the alpha-abundance of subsolar-metallicity stars in the Milky Way's central half-parsec: testing globular cluster and dwarf galaxy infall scenarios
• Mapping the Distant and Metal-Poor Milky Way with SDSS-V
• Chemo-Dynamical Tagging in the Outskirts: The Origins of Stellar Substructures in the Magellanic Clouds
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• Early Results from APOKASC
• Applying Vision Transformers on Spectral Analysis of Astronomical Objects
• The APOKASC Catalog
• Spectroscopic constraints for low-mass asteroseismic targets