The SEGUE Stellar Parameter Pipeline. I. Description and Initial Validation Tests

TL;DR

The paper introduces the SEGUE Stellar Parameter Pipeline (SSPP), detailing its development, initial validation, and performance assessment for deriving stellar parameters from SDSS spectroscopic and photometric data.

Contribution

It presents the design, implementation, and initial validation of the SSPP, a pipeline for estimating stellar parameters from medium-resolution spectra and photometry, including spectral classification for a wide range of stars.

Findings

The SSPP achieves accurate radial velocities and stellar parameters with quantified errors.

Systematic and random errors of the SSPP are critically evaluated.

The pipeline has been successfully applied to SDSS DR-6 data.

Abstract

We describe the development and implementation of the SEGUE (Sloan Extension for Galactic Exploration and Understanding) Stellar Parameter Pipeline (SSPP). The SSPP derives, using multiple techniques, radial velocities and the fundamental stellar atmospheric parameters (effective temperature, surface gravity, and metallicity) for AFGK-type stars, based on medium-resolution spectroscopy and $ugriz$ photometry obtained during the course of the original Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I) and its Galactic extension (SDSS-II/SEGUE). The SSPP also provides spectral classification for a much wider range of stars, including stars with temperatures outside of the window where atmospheric parameters can be estimated with the current approaches. This is Paper I in a series of papers on the SSPP; it provides an overview of the SSPP, and initial tests of its performance using multiple data sets. Random and systematic errors are critically examined for the current version of the SSPP, which has been used for the sixth public data release of the SDSS (DR-6).