The SAPP pipeline for the determination of stellar abundances and atmospheric parameters of stars in the core program of the PLATO mission

Matthew Raymond Gent, Maria Bergemann, Aldo Serenelli, Luca Casagrande, Jeffrey M. Gerber, Ulrike Heiter, Mikhail Kovalev, Thierry Morel, Nicolas Nardetto, Vardan Adibekyan, Víctor Silva Aguirre, Martin Asplund, Kevin Belkacem, Carlos del Burgo, Lionel Bigot, Andrea Chiavassa, Luisa Fernanda Rodríguez Díaz, Marie-Jo Goupil, Jonay I. González Hernández, Denis Mourard, Thibault Merle, Szabolcs Mészáros, Douglas J. Marshall, Rhita-Maria Ouazzani, Bertrand Plez, Daniel Reese, Regner Trampedach, Maria Tsantaki

The SAPP pipeline for the determination of stellar abundances and atmospheric parameters of stars in the core program of the PLATO mission
See arXiv version
25 pages, 42 figures

Abstract

We introduce the SAPP (Stellar Abundances and atmospheric Parameters Pipeline), the prototype of the code that will be used to determine parameters of stars observed within the core program of the PLATO space mission. The pipeline is based on the Bayesian inference and provides effective temperature, surface gravity, metallicity, chemical abundances, and luminosity. The code in its more general version can have a much wider range of applications. It can also provide masses, ages, and radii of stars and can be used for stars of stellar types not targeted by the PLATO core program, such as red giants. We validate the code on a set of 27 benchmark stars that includes 19 FGK-type dwarfs, 6 GK-type sub-giants, and 2 red giants. Our results suggest that combining various observables is the optimal approach, as it allows to break degeneracies between different parameters and yields more accurate values of stellar parameters and more realistic uncertainties. For the PLATO core sample, we obtain a typical uncertainty of 27 (\rm{syst.}) \pm 37 (\rm{stat.}) K for T_{eff}, 0.00 \pm 0.01 dex for \log{g}, 0.02 \pm 0.02 dex for metallicity [Fe/H], -0.01 \pm 0.03 \rsun for radii, -0.01 \pm 0.05 \msun for stellar masses, and -0.14 \pm 0.63 Gyrs for ages. We also show that the best results are obtained by combining the \nu_{max} scaling relation and stellar spectra. This resolves the notorious problem of degeneracies, which is particularly important for F-type stars.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *