Start year
2010
Organizational Unit
Organizing institutions
Related grants:
General
Description
Stellar spectroscopy allows us to determine the properties and chemical compositions of stars. From this information for stars of different ages in the Milky Way, it is possible to reconstruct the chemical evolution of the Galaxy, as well as the origin of the elements heavier than boron, created mainly in stellar interiors. It is also possible to study stellar formation, and the formation of the Galaxy, from the signature of the Galactic potential on the stellar orbits, and the distributions of mass, ages, and the abundance of heavy elements.
Obtaining high-resolution spectra, as necessary for studies of chemical compositions, requires advanced and efficient instrumentation. This is particularly true for research that calls for large stellar samples, which demands the observation of hundreds or thousands of sources simultaneously. Efficiency requires that the data processing and analysis are performed in an automated way.
The interpretation of spectra is based on physical models of the atmospheres of the stars, from where the light that we observe escapes the stars. The main ingredients for building such models are the fluid dynamics, and the properties of the atoms, ions, and molecules, especially regarding their interactions with the radiation coming from the stellar interior.
Once we have a plausible model, it is possible to compute in detail how the radiation propagates through the stellar atmosphere, and the emergent spectrum, which can then be iteratively compared with the observations to refine the model.
This project covers three different research fronts:
- Improving model atmospheres and simulations of stellar spectra.
- Developing tools for acquisition, reduction, and analysis of spectroscopic observations, in particular for the determination of chemical abundances in stars.
- Designing, preparing, and executing spectroscopic studies of stars aimed at understanding a) the most relevant aspects of the physics of stellar atmospheres, b) the formation and evolution of stars, c) the origin of the chemical elements, and d) the formation, structure, and evolution of the Milky Way galaxy.
Members
Principal investigator
Carlos
Allende Prieto
Project staff
Prof.
Rafael
Rebolo López
Yeisson Fabián
Martínez Osorio
Thomas
Masseron
Collaborators
Andrés
Asensio Ramos
Juan
Calvo Tovar
Jorge
Casares Velázquez
Martín
López Corredoira
José Alfonso
López Aguerri
Claudio
Dalla Vecchia
Domingo Aníbal
García Hernández
Ramón
García López
Fabio
Tenegi Sanginés
FRANCISCO SHU
KITAURA JOYANES
Jonay Isai
González Hernández
Olga María
Zamora Sánchez
Pablo
Rodríguez Gil
Dr.
I. Hubeny
Dr.
D.L. Lambert
Dr.
L. Koesterke
Dr.
I. Ramirez
Dr.
M. Shetrone
Dr.
J.J. Hermes
Dr.
D. E. Winget
Dr.
B. Castanheira
Dr.
M. Asplund
Dr.
W. Brown
Dr.
M. Kilic
Dr.
S. Majewski
Dr.
R. Schiavon
Dr.
J. Holtzman
Dr.
H.G. Ludwig
Dr.
T. Beers
Dr.
V. S. Smith
Dr.
Y. Sun Lee
Dr.
M. Cropper
Dr.
D. Kawata
Dr.
M. P. Ruffoni
Dr.
J. C. Pickering
Dr.
K. Cunha
Dr.
C. Rockosi
Dr.
Andrew Cooper
Dr.
Boris Gaensicke
Results
- Complete the installation and commissioning of HORuS on GTC
- Discover two new stars with more than 100,000 times less iron than the Sun
- Complete the classification of all the APOGEE spectra with K-means
- Publish a complete collection of model stellar spectra for stars O to M
- Identify the signature of chemical diffusion in the atmospheres of the stars in the cluster M67
Scientific activity
Related publications
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Isotopic abundance of carbon in the DLA towards QSO B1331+170Chemical evolution models predict a gradual build-up of 13C in the Universe, based on empirical nuclear reaction rates and assumptions on the properties of stellar populations. However, old metal-poor stars within the Galaxy contain more 13C than is predicted, suggesting that further refinements to the models are necessary. Gas at high-redshiftMilaković, Dinko et al.
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102024 -
The Gaia-ESO Survey: The DR5 analysis of the medium-resolution GIRAFFE and high-resolution UVES spectra of FGK-type starsThe Gaia-ESO Survey is an European Southern Observatory (ESO) public spectroscopic survey that targeted 10 5 stars in the Milky Way covering the major populations of the disk, bulge and halo. The observations were made using FLAMES on the VLT obtaining both UVES high (R ~ 47 000) and GIRAFFE medium (R ~ 20 000) resolution spectra. The analysis ofWorley, C. C. et al.
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42024 -
The discovery space of ELT-ANDES. Stars and stellar populationsThe ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph (ANDES) is the optical and near-infrared high-resolution echelle spectrograph envisioned for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). We present a selection of science cases, supported by new calculations and simulations, where ANDES could enable major advances in the fields of stars and stellarRoederer, Ian U. et al.
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42024 -
Cosmology and fundamental physics with the ELT-ANDES spectrographState-of-the-art 19th century spectroscopy led to the discovery of quantum mechanics, and 20th century spectroscopy led to the confirmation of quantum electrodynamics. State-of-the-art 21st century astrophysical spectrographs, especially ANDES at ESO's ELT, have another opportunity to play a key role in the search for, and characterization of, theMartins, C. J. A. P. et al.
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22024 -
Fundamental physics with ESPRESSO: a new determination of the D/H ratio towards PKS1937-101Primordial abundances of light elements are sensitive to the physics of the early Universe and can directly constrain cosmological quantities, such as the baryon-to-photon ratio $\eta _{10}$, the baryon density, and the number of neutrino families. Deuterium is especially suited for these studies: its primordial abundance is sensitive andGuarneri, Francesco et al.
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42024 -
The Shapes of Stellar SpectraStellar atmospheres separate the hot and dense stellar interiors from the emptiness of space. Radiation escapes from the outermost layers of a star, carrying direct physical information. Underneath the atmosphere, the very high opacity keeps radiation thermalized and resembling a black body with the local temperature. In the atmosphere the opacityAllende Prieto, Carlos
Advertised on:
32023 -
Probing the small-scale structure of the intergalactic medium with ESPRESSO: spectroscopy of the lensed QSO UM673The gravitationally lensed quasar J014516.6-094517 at z = 2.719 has been observed with the ESPRESSO instrument at the ESO VLT to obtain high-fidelity spectra of the two images A and B with a resolving power R = 70 000. At the redshifts under investigation (2.1 ≲ z ≲ 2.7), the Lyman forests along the two sightlines are separated by sub-kiloparsecCristiani, Stefano et al.
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32024 -
Survey Operations for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic InstrumentThe Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey is a spectroscopic survey of tens of millions of galaxies at 0 < z < 3.5 covering 14,000 sq. deg. of the sky. In its first 1.1 yr of survey operations, it has observed more than 14 million galaxies and 4 million stars. We describe the processes that govern DESI's observations of the 15,000Schlafly, Edward F. et al.
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122023 -
The <SUP>12</SUP>C/<SUP>13</SUP>C isotopic ratio at the dawn of chemical evolutionContext. The known mega metal-poor (MMP) and hyper metal-poor (HMP) stars, with [Fe/H] < −6.0 and < −5.0, respectively, likely belong to the CEMP-no class, namely, carbon-enhanced stars with little or no second peak neutron-capture elements. They are likely second-generation stars, and the few elements measurable in their atmospheres are used toMolaro, P. et al.
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112023 -
Optical and Infrared Counterparts of the X-Ray Sources Detected in the Chandra Cygnus OB2 Legacy SurveyThe young massive OB association Cygnus OB2, in the Cygnus X complex, is the closest (~1400 pc) star-forming region to the Sun hosting thousands of young low-mass stars and up to 1000 OB stars, among which are some of the most massive stars known in our Galaxy. This region holds great importance for several fields of modern astrophysics, such asGuarcello, M. G. et al.
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112023 -
The Pristine survey - XXII. A serendipitous discovery of an extremely Li-rich very metal-poor giant and a new method of <SUP>6</SUP>Li/<SUP>7</SUP>Li isotope measurementWe report the serendipitous discovery of a very metal-poor (VMP) Li-rich giant star (T eff = 4690 ± 80 K, log g = 1.34 ± 0.13, [Fe/H] = -2.43 ± 0.07). We analyse the Li I 6103 and 6707 Å lines accounting for departures from local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) and correcting for 3D effects using literature data, which yields a lithium abundanceSitnova, T. M. et al.
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122023 -
GTC Follow-up Observations of Very Metal-poor Star Candidates from DESIThe observations from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will significantly increase the numbers of known extremely metal-poor stars by a factor of ~10, improving the sample statistics to study the early chemical evolution of the Milky Way and the nature of the first stars. In this paper we report follow-up observations with highAllende Prieto, Carlos et al.
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112023 -
A Tale of Two Disks: Mapping the Milky Way with the Final Data Release of APOGEEWe present new maps of the Milky Way disk showing the distribution of metallicity ([Fe/H]), α-element abundances ([Mg/Fe]), and stellar age, using a sample of 66,496 red giant stars from the final data release (DR17) of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment survey. We measure radial and vertical gradients, quantify theImig, Julie et al.
Advertised on:
92023 -
The Gaia-ESO Survey: Homogenisation of stellar parameters and elemental abundancesThe Gaia-ESO Survey is a public spectroscopic survey that targeted ≳10 5 stars covering all major components of the Milky Way from the end of 2011 to 2018, delivering its final public release in May 2022. Unlike other spectroscopic surveys, Gaia-ESO is the only survey that observed stars across all spectral types with dedicated, specialisedHourihane, A. et al.
Advertised on:
82023 -
Decoding the compositions of four bright r-process-enhanced starsThere has been a concerted effort in recent years to identify the astrophysical sites of the r-process that can operate early in the galaxy. The discovery of many r-process-enhanced (RPE) stars (especially by the R-process Alliance collaboration) has significantly accelerated this effort. However, only limited data exist on the detailed elementalSaraf, Pallavi et al.
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102023 -
iNNterpol: High-precision interpolation of stellar atmospheres with a deep neural network using a 1D convolutional auto encoder for feature extractionContext. Given the widespread availability of grids of models for stellar atmospheres, it is necessary to recover intermediate atmospheric models by means of accurate techniques that go beyond simple linear interpolation and capture the intricacies of the data. Aims: Our goal is to establish a reliable, precise, lightweight, and fast method forWestendorp Plaza, C. et al.
Advertised on:
72023 -
Opacity for realistic 3D MHD simulations of cool stellar atmospheresContext. Realistic three-dimensional time-dependent simulations of stellar near-surface convection employ the opacity binning method for the efficient and accurate computation of the radiative energy exchange. The method provides several orders of magnitude of speedup, but its implementation includes a number of free parameters. Aims: Our aim is toPerdomo García, A. et al.
Advertised on:
72023 -
Stellar Characterization and Radius Inflation of Hyades M-dwarf Stars from the APOGEE SurveyWe present a spectroscopic analysis of a sample of 48 M-dwarf stars (0.2 M ⊙ < M < 0.6 M ⊙) from the Hyades open cluster using high-resolution H-band spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey/Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) survey. Our methodology adopts spectrum synthesis with LTE MARCS model atmospheres, along withWanderley, Fábio et al.
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72023 -
sMILES SSPs: a library of semi-empirical MILES stellar population models with variable [α/Fe] abundancesWe present a new library of semi-empirical stellar population models that are based on the empirical MILES and semi-empirical sMILES stellar libraries. The models span a large range of age and metallicity, in addition to an [α/Fe] coverage from -0.2 to +0.6 dex, at MILES resolution (FWHM = $2.5\,$ Å) and wavelength coverage ($3540.5-7409.6\,$ Å)Knowles, Adam T. et al.
Advertised on:
82023 -
The Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) VII: a discovery of the first inner Galaxy CEMP-r/s starWell-studied very metal-poor (VMP, [Fe/H] <-2) stars in the inner Galaxy are few in number, and they are of special interest because they are expected to be among the oldest stars in the Milky Way. We present high-resolution spectroscopic follow-up of the carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) star Pristine_184237.56-260624.5 (hereafter Pr184237)Mashonkina, L. et al.
Advertised on:
82023
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SEVERO OCHOA 2016 - 2019
The IAC is an internationalized Spanish research centre aiming to achieve major advances in the understanding of the laws that govern the origin and evolution of the various forms of matter/energy in the Universe. Outstanding results are expected in key areas of research such as Solar physics, Sun-Earth connections, Exoplanetary systems, Solar
Rafael
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