| 1. |
- Gilmore, G., et al.
(author)
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The Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey : Motivation, implementation, GIRAFFE data processing, analysis, and final data products star
- 2022
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In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 666
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Context. The Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey is an ambitious project designed to obtain astrophysical parameters and elemental abundances for 100 000 stars, including large representative samples of the stellar populations in the Galaxy, and a well-defined sample of 60 (plus 20 archive) open clusters. We provide internally consistent results calibrated on benchmark stars and star clusters, extending across a very wide range of abundances and ages. This provides a legacy data set of intrinsic value, and equally a large wide-ranging dataset that is of value for the homogenisation of other and future stellar surveys and Gaia's astrophysical parameters. Aims. This article provides an overview of the survey methodology, the scientific aims, and the implementation, including a description of the data processing for the GIRAFFE spectra. A companion paper introduces the survey results. Methods. Gaia-ESO aspires to quantify both random and systematic contributions to measurement uncertainties. Thus, all available spectroscopic analysis techniques are utilised, each spectrum being analysed by up to several different analysis pipelines, with considerable effort being made to homogenise and calibrate the resulting parameters. We describe here the sequence of activities up to delivery of processed data products to the ESO Science Archive Facility for open use. Results. The Gaia-ESO Survey obtained 202 000 spectra of 115 000 stars using 340 allocated VLT nights between December 2011 and January 2018 from GIRAFFE and UVES. Conclusions. The full consistently reduced final data set of spectra was released through the ESO Science Archive Facility in late 2020, with the full astrophysical parameters sets following in 2022. A companion article reviews the survey implementation, scientific highlights, the open cluster survey, and data products.
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| 2. |
- Smiljanic, R., et al.
(author)
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The Gaia-ESO Survey: The analysis of high-resolution UVES spectra of FGK-type stars
- 2014
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In: Astronomy & Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 570
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Context. The ongoing Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey is using FLAMES at the VLT to obtain high-quality medium-resolution Giraffe spectra for about 10(5) stars and high-resolution UVES spectra for about 5000 stars. With UVES, the Survey has already observed 1447 FGK-type stars. Aims. These UVES spectra are analyzed in parallel by several state-of-the-art methodologies. Our aim is to present how these analyses were implemented, to discuss their results, and to describe how a final recommended parameter scale is defined. We also discuss the precision (method-to-method dispersion) and accuracy (biases with respect to the reference values) of the final parameters. These results are part of the Gaia-ESO second internal release and will be part of its first public release of advanced data products. Methods. The final parameter scale is tied to the scale defined by the Gaia benchmark stars, a set of stars with fundamental atmospheric parameters. In addition, a set of open and globular clusters is used to evaluate the physical soundness of the results. Each of the implemented methodologies is judged against the benchmark stars to define weights in three different regions of the parameter space. The final recommended results are the weighted medians of those from the individual methods. Results. The recommended results successfully reproduce the atmospheric parameters of the benchmark stars and the expected T-eff-log g relation of the calibrating clusters. Atmospheric parameters and abundances have been determined for 1301 FGK-type stars observed with UVES. The median of the method-to-method dispersion of the atmospheric parameters is 55K for T-eff, 0.13dex for log g and 0.07 dex for [Fe/H]. Systematic biases are estimated to be between 50-100 K for T-eff, 0.10-0.25 dex for log g and 0.05-0.10 dex for [Fe/H]. Abundances for 24 elements were derived: C, N, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Y, Zr, Mo, Ba, Nd, and Eu. The typical method-to-method dispersion of the abundances varies between 0.10 and 0.20 dex. Conclusions. The Gaia-ESO sample of high-resolution spectra of FGK-type stars will be among the largest of its kind analyzed in a homogeneous way. The extensive list of elemental abundances derived in these stars will enable significant advances in the areas of stellar evolution and Milky Way formation and evolution.
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| 3. |
- Walcher, C.~J., et al.
(author)
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4MOST Scientific Operations
- 2019
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In: Messenger. - 0722-6691. ; 175, s. 12-16
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The 4MOST instrument is a multi-object spectrograph that will address Galactic and extragalactic science cases simultaneously by observing targets from a large number of different surveys within each science exposure. This parallel mode of operation and the survey nature of 4MOST require some distinct 4MOST- specific operational features within the overall operations model of ESO. The main feature is that the 4MOST Consortium will deliver, not only the instrument, but also contractual services to the user community, which is why 4MOST is also described as a facility. This white paper concentrates on information particularly useful to answering the forthcoming Call for Letters of Intent.
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| 4. |
- Lind, Karin, et al.
(author)
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The Gaia-ESO Survey : A globular cluster escapee in the Galactic halo
- 2015
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In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 575
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A small fraction of the halo field is made up of stars that share the light element (Z <= 13) anomalies characteristic of second generation globular cluster (GC) stars. The ejected stars shed light on the formation of the Galactic halo by tracing the dynamical history of the clusters, which are believed to have once been more massive. Some of these ejected stars are expected to show strong Al enhancement at the expense of shortage of Mg, but until now no such star has been found. We search for outliers in the Mg and Al abundances of the few hundreds of halo field stars observed in the first eighteen months of the Gaia-ESO public spectroscopic survey. One halo star at the base of the red giant branch, here referred to as 22593757-4648029 is found to have [Mg/Fe] = -0.36 +/- 0.04 and [Al/Fe] = 0.99 +/- 0.08, which is compatible with the most extreme ratios detected in GCs so far. We compare the orbit of 22593757-4648029 to GCs of similar metallicity and find it unlikely that this star has been tidally stripped with low ejection velocity from any of the clusters. However, both chemical and kinematic arguments render it plausible that the star has been ejected at high velocity from the anomalous GC omega Centauri within the last few billion years. We cannot rule out other progenitor GCs, because some may have disrupted fully, and the abundance and orbital data are inadequate for many of those that are still intact.
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| 5. |
- Bergemann, Maria, et al.
(author)
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The Gaia-ESO Survey : Hydrogen lines in red giants directly trace stellar mass
- 2016
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In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 594
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Red giant stars are perhaps the most important type of stars for Galactic and extra-galactic archaeology: they are luminous, occur in all stellar populations, and their surface temperatures allow precise abundance determinations for many different chemical elements. Yet, the full star formation and enrichment history of a galaxy can be traced directly only if two key observables can be determined for large stellar samples: age and chemical composition. While spectroscopy is a powerful method to analyse the detailed abundances of stars, stellar ages are the missing link in the chain, since they are not a direct observable. However, spectroscopy should be able to estimate stellar masses, which for red giants directly infer ages provided their chemical composition is known. Here we establish a new empirical relation between the shape of the hydrogen line in the observed spectra of red giants and stellar mass determined from asteroseismology. The relation allows determining stellar masses and ages with an accuracy of 10-15%. The method can be used with confidence for stars in the following range of stellar parameters: 4000 < T-eff < 5000 K, 0.5 < log g < 3.5, -2.0 < [ Fe/H] < 0.3, and luminosities log L/L-Sun < 2.5. Our analysis provides observational evidence that the H-alpha spectral characteristics of red giant stars are tightly correlated with their mass and therefore their age. We also show that the method samples well all stellar populations with ages above 1 Gyr. Targeting bright giants, the method allows obtaining simultaneous age and chemical abundance information far deeper than would be possible with asteroseismology, extending the possible survey volume to remote regions of the Milky Way and even to neighbouring galaxies such as Andromeda or the Magellanic Clouds even with current instrumentation, such as the VLT and Keck facilities.
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| 6. |
- Bergemann, M., et al.
(author)
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The Gaia-ESO Survey : radial metallicity gradients and age-metallicity relation of stars in the Milky Way disk
- 2014
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In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 565, s. A89-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We study the relationship between age, metallicity, and alpha-enhancement of FGK stars in the Galactic disk. The results are based upon the analysis of high-resolution UVES spectra from the Gaia-ESO large stellar survey. We explore the limitations of the observed dataset, i.e. the accuracy of stellar parameters and the selection effects that are caused by the photometric target preselection. We find that the colour and magnitude cuts in the survey suppress old metal-rich stars and young metal-poor stars. This suppression may be as high as 97% in some regions of the age-metallicity relationship. The dataset consists of 144 stars with a wide range of ages from 0.5 Gyr to 13.5 Gyr, Galactocentric distances from 6 kpc to 9.5 kpc, and vertical distances from the plane 0 < vertical bar Z vertical bar < 1.5 kpc. On this basis, we find that i) the observed age-metallicity relation is nearly flat in the range of ages between 0 Gyr and 8 Gyr; ii) at ages older than 9 Gyr, we see a decrease in [Fe/H] and a clear absence of metal-rich stars; this cannot be explained by the survey selection functions; iii) there is a significant scatter of [Fe/H] at any age; and iv) [Mg/Fe] increases with age, but the dispersion of [Mg/Fe] at ages > 9 Gyr is not as small as advocated by some other studies. In agreement with earlier work, we find that radial abundance gradients change as a function of vertical distance from the plane. The [Mg/Fe] gradient steepens and becomes negative. In addition, we show that the inner disk is not only more alpha-rich compared to the outer disk, but also older, as traced independently by the ages and Mg abundances of stars.
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| 7. |
- de Jong, Roelof S., et al.
(author)
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4MOST-4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope
- 2014
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In: Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy V. - : SPIE. - 0277-786X .- 1996-756X. ; 9147
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- 4MOST is a wide-field, high-multiplex spectroscopic survey facility under development for the VISTA telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Its main science drivers are in the fields of galactic archeology, high-energy physics, galaxy evolution and cosmology. 4MOST will in particular provide the spectroscopic complements to the large area surveys coming from space missions like Gaia, eROSITA, Euclid, and PLATO and from ground-based facilities like VISTA, VST, DES, LSST and SKA. The 4MOST baseline concept features a 2.5 degree diameter field-of-view with similar to 2400 fibres in the focal surface that are configured by a fibre positioner based on the tilting spine principle. The fibres feed two types of spectrographs; similar to 1600 fibres go to two spectrographs with resolution R> 5000 (lambda similar to 390-930 nm) and similar to 800 fibres to a spectrograph with R> 18,000 (lambda similar to 392-437 nm & 515-572 nm & 605-675 nm). Both types of spectrographs are fixed-configuration, three-channel spectrographs. 4MOST will have an unique operations concept in which 5 year public surveys from both the consortium and the ESO community will be combined and observed in parallel during each exposure, resulting in more than 25 million spectra of targets spread over a large fraction of the southern sky. The 4MOST Facility Simulator (4FS) was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of this observing concept. 4MOST has been accepted for implementation by ESO with operations expected to start by the end of 2020. This paper provides a top-level overview of the 4MOST facility, while other papers in these proceedings provide more detailed descriptions of the instrument concept[1], the instrument requirements development[2], the systems engineering implementation[3], the instrument model[4], the fibre positioner concepts[5], the fibre feed[6], and the spectrographs[7].
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| 8. |
- Hawkins, K., et al.
(author)
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Characterizing the high-velocity stars of RAVE: the discovery of a metal-rich halo star born in the Galactic disc
- 2015
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In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1365-2966 .- 0035-8711. ; 447:2, s. 2046-2058
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We aim to characterize high-velocity (HiVel) stars in the solar vicinity both chemically and kinematically using the fourth data release of the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE). We used a sample of 57 HiVel stars with Galactic rest-frame velocities larger than 275 km s(-1). With 6D position and velocity information, we integrated the orbits of the HiVel stars and found that, on average, they reach out to 13 kpc from the Galactic plane and have relatively eccentric orbits consistent with the Galactic halo. Using the stellar parameters and [alpha/Fe] estimates from RAVE, we found the metallicity distribution of the HiVel stars peak at [M/H] = -1.2 dex and is chemically consistent with the inner halo. There are a few notable exceptions that include a hypervelocity star candidate, an extremely HiVel bound halo star, and one star that is kinematically consistent with the halo but chemically consistent with the disc. High-resolution spectra were obtained for the metal-rich HiVel star candidate and the second highest velocity star in the sample. Using these high-resolution data, we report the discovery of a metal-rich halo star that has likely been dynamically ejected into the halo from the Galactic thick disc. This discovery could aid in explaining the assembly of the most metal-rich component of the Galactic halo.
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| 9. |
- Hansen, C. J., et al.
(author)
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Stellar science from a blue wavelength range
- 2015
-
In: Russian Review. - : Wiley. - 1467-9434. ; 74:4, s. 665-676
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- From stellar spectra, a variety of physical properties of stars can be derived. In particular, the chemical composition of stellar atmospheres can be inferred from absorption line analyses. These provide key information on large scales, such as the formation of our Galaxy, down to the small-scale nucleosynthesis processes that take place in stars and supernovae. By extending the observed wavelength range toward bluer wavelengths, we optimize such studies to also include critical absorption lines in metal-poor stars, and allow for studies of heavy elements (Z = 38) whose formation processes remain poorly constrained. In this context, spectrographs optimized for observing blue wavelength ranges are essential, since many absorption lines at redder wavelengths are too weak to be detected in metal-poor stars. This means that some elements cannot be studied in the visual-redder regions, and important scientific tracers and science cases are lost. The present era of large public surveys will target millions of stars. It is therefore important that the next generation of spectrographs are designed such that they cover a wide wavelength range and can observe a large number of stars simultaneously. Only then, we can gain the full information from stellar spectra, from both metal-poor to metal-rich ones, that will allow us to understand the aforementioned formation scenarios in greater detail. Here we describe the requirements driving the design of the forthcoming survey instrument 4MOST, a multi-object spectrograph commissioned for the ESO VISTA 4 m-telescope. While 4MOST is also intended for studies of active galactic nuclei, baryonic acoustic oscillations, weak lensing, cosmological constants, supernovae and other transients, we focus here on high-density, wide-area survey of stars and the science that can be achieved with high-resolution stellar spectroscopy. Scientific and technical requirements that governed the design are described along with a thorough line blending analysis. For the high-resolution spectrograph, we find that a sampling of >= 2.5 (pixels per resolving element), spectral resolution of 18 000 or higher, and a wavelength range covering 393-436 nm, is the most well-balanced solution for the instrument. A spectrograph with these characteristics will enable accurate abundance analysis (+/- 0.1 dex) in the blue and allow us to confront the outlined scientific questions. (C) 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH& Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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| 10. |
- Steinmetz, Matthias, et al.
(author)
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The Sixth Data Release of the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE). I. Survey Description, Spectra, and Radial Velocities
- 2020
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In: The Astronomical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0004-6256 .- 1538-3881. ; 160:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Radial Velocity Experiment (Rave) is a magnitude-limited (9 < I < 12) spectroscopic survey of Galactic stars randomly selected in Earth's southern hemisphere. The Rave medium-resolution spectra (R ∼ 7500) cover the Ca-triplet region (8410-8795 Å). The sixth and final data release (DR6) is based on 518,387 observations of 451,783 unique stars. Rave observations were taken between 2003 April 12 and 2013 April 4. Here we present the genesis, setup, and data reduction of Rave as well as wavelength-calibrated and flux-normalized spectra and error spectra for all observations in Rave DR6. Furthermore, we present derived spectral classification and radial velocities for the Rave targets, complemented by cross-matches with Gaia DR2 and other relevant catalogs. A comparison between internal error estimates, variances derived from stars with more than one observing epoch, and a comparison with radial velocities of Gaia DR2 reveals consistently that 68% of the objects have a velocity accuracy better than 1.4 km s-1, while 95% of the objects have radial velocities better than 4.0 km s-1. Stellar atmospheric parameters, abundances and distances are presented in a subsequent publication. The data can be accessed via the Rave website (http://rave-survey.org) or the Vizier database.
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