Estimation of Nitrogen-to-Iron Abundance Ratios from Low-Resolution Spectra

Kim, Changmin; Lee, Young Sun; Beers, Timothy C.; Masseron, Thomas
Bibliographical reference

Journal of Korean Astronomical Society

Advertised on:
4
2022
Number of authors
4
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
4
Refereed citations
4
Description
We present a method to determine nitrogen abundance ratios with respect to iron ([N/Fe]) from molecular CN-band features observed in low-resolution (R ∼ 2000) stellar spectra obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST). Various tests are carried out to check the systematic and random errors of our technique, and the impact of signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios of stellar spectra on the determined [N/Fe]. We find that the uncertainty of our derived [N/Fe] is less than 0.3 dex for S/N ratios larger than 10 in the ranges T_{eff} = [4000, 6000] K, log g = [0.0, 3.5], [Fe/H] = [‑3.0, 0.0], [C/Fe] = [‑1.0, +4.5], and [N/Fe] = [‑1.0, +4.5], the parameter space that we are interested in to identify N-enhanced stars in the Galactic halo. A star-by-star comparison with a sample of stars with [N/Fe] estimates available from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) also suggests a similar level of uncertainty in our measured [N/Fe], after removing its systematic error. Based on these results, we conclude that our method is able to reproduce [N/Fe] from low-resolution spectroscopic data, with an uncertainty sufficiently small to discover N-rich stars that presumably originated from disrupted Galactic globular clusters.
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