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Gaia FGK benchmark stars: new candidates at low metallicities

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Hawkins, K 
Jofre, P 
Heiter, U 
Soubiran, C 
Blanco-Cuaresma, S 

Abstract

We have entered an era of large spectroscopic surveys in which we can measure, through automated pipelines, the atmospheric parameters and chemical abundances for large numbers of stars. Calibrating these survey pipelines using a set of "benchmark stars" in order to evaluate the accuracy and precision of the provided parameters and abundances is of utmost importance. The recent proposed set of Gaia FGK benchmark stars of Heiter et al. (2015) has no recommended stars within the critical metallicity range of −2.0< [Fe/H] <−1.0 dex. In this paper, we aim to add candidate Gaia benchmark stars inside of this metal-poor gap. We began with a sample of 21 metal-poor stars which was reduced to 10 stars by requiring accurate photometry and parallaxes, and high-resolution archival spectra. The procedure used to determine the stellar parameters was similar to Heiter et al. (2015) and Jofre et al. (2014) for consistency. The effective temperature (Teff) of all candidate stars was determined using the Infrared Flux Method utilizing multi-band photometry. The surface gravity (log g) was determined through fitting stellar evolutionary tracks. The [Fe/H] was determined using four different spectroscopic methods fixing the Teff and log g from the values determined independent of spectroscopy. We discuss, star-by-star, the quality of each parameter including how it compares to literature, how it compares to a spectroscopic run where all parameters are free, and whether Fe I ionisation-excitation balance is achieved. From the 10 stars, we recommend a sample of five new metal-poor benchmark candidate stars which have consistent Teff , log g, and [Fe/H] determined through several means. These stars can be used for calibration and validation purpose of stellar parameter and abundance pipelines and should be of highest priority for future interferometric studies.

Description

Keywords

stars: fundamental parameters, techniques: spectroscopic, standards

Journal Title

ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1432-0746
1432-0746

Volume Title

592

Publisher

EDP Sciences
Sponsorship
European Research Council (320360)