Bibcode
Beers, T. C.; Allende Prieto, C.; Wilhelm, R.; Norris, J. E.; Yanny, B.; Newberg, H. J.; Rockosi, C.; Thirupathi, S.; Lee, Y.
Bibliographical reference
American Astronomical Society Meeting 207, #147.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 37, p.1405
Advertised on:
12
2005
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
Over the past half century, astronomers have identified on the order of
2000 Very Metal Poor (VMP) stars with [Fe/H] < -2.0, and a few
hundred Extremely Metal Poor (EMP) stars with [Fe/H] < -3.0,
primarily from two large objective prism surveys, the HK survey of Beers
and collaborators and the Hamburg/ESO Survey of Christlieb and
colleagues. High-resolution spectroscopic follow-up of a subset of these
stars has resulted in the discovery of interesting, but rare, individual
stars that display characteristic elemental abundance patterns that are
constraining models of the nature of first-generation stars, the initial
mass function at low metallicity, the yields of early supernovae, and
the operation and astrophysical sites(s) of the r-process and s-process.
Application of a newly developed spectroscopic pipeline for SEGUE has
already revealed the presence of at least 2500 VMP stars and several
hundred EMP stars in the public SDSS archive (through DR-4). The color
selection algorithm that is being used for SEGUE is discussed, and the
efficiency of the identification of VMP stars in SEGUE is presented.
Based on the early SEGUE test data, we estimate that some 20,000 VMP
stars will be identified by this survey within the next three years. We
also discuss current plans for the calibration and refinement of the
SEGUE spectroscopic pipeline and for obtaining rapid high-resolution
follow-up of the most interesting stars.
T.C.B., S.T., and Y.L. acknowledge partial support from grant AST
04-06784, as well as from grant PHY 02-16783, Physics Frontier
Center/Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA), awarded by the
US National Science Foundation. H.J.N acknowledges partial support from
NSF grant AST 03-07571. J.E.N. acknowledges partial support from
Australian Research Council Grant DP0342613.