Bibcode
García Pérez, A. E.; Allende Prieto, C.; Holtzman, Jon A.; Shetrone, Matthew; Mészáros, Szabolcs; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Carrera, R.; Cunha, Katia; García-Hernández, D. A.; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Majewski, Steven R.; Nidever, David L.; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Shane, Neville; Smith, Verne V.; Sobeck, Jennifer; Troup, Nicholas; Zamora, O.; Weinberg, David H.; Bovy, Jo; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Feuillet, Diane; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Hayden, Michael R.; Hearty, Fred R.; Nguyen, Duy C.; O’Connell, Robert W.; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Wilson, John C.; Zasowski, Gail
Bibliographical reference
The Astronomical Journal, Volume 151, Issue 6, article id. 144, 20 pp. (2016).
Advertised on:
6
2016
Citations
572
Refereed citations
538
Description
The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) has
built the largest moderately high-resolution (R ≈ 22,500)
spectroscopic map of the stars across the Milky Way, and including
dust-obscured areas. The APOGEE Stellar Parameter and Chemical
Abundances Pipeline (ASPCAP) is the software developed for the automated
analysis of these spectra. ASPCAP determines atmospheric parameters and
chemical abundances from observed spectra by comparing observed spectra
to libraries of theoretical spectra, using χ2
minimization in a multidimensional parameter space. The package consists
of a fortran90 code that does the actual minimization and a wrapper IDL
code for book-keeping and data handling. This paper explains in detail
the ASPCAP components and functionality, and presents results from a
number of tests designed to check its performance. ASPCAP provides
stellar effective temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities
precise to 2%, 0.1 dex, and 0.05 dex, respectively, for most APOGEE
stars, which are predominantly giants. It also provides abundances for
up to 15 chemical elements with various levels of precision, typically
under 0.1 dex. The final data release (DR12) of the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey III contains an APOGEE database of more than 150,000 stars.
ASPCAP development continues in the SDSS-IV APOGEE-2 survey.