The TESS-HERMES survey Data Release 1: high-resolution spectroscopy of the TESS southern continuous viewing zone

TL;DR

This paper presents high-resolution spectroscopic data for about 16,000 stars in TESS's southern continuous viewing zone, providing stellar parameters and properties crucial for exoplanet and stellar studies, with data accessible online.

Contribution

It offers the first large-scale spectroscopic catalog for TESS's southern CVZ, including Bayesian stellar properties, and compares results with the TESS Input Catalog to improve target selection.

Findings

TIC effectively separates dwarfs and giants but misclassifies some cool dwarfs as giants.

Spectroscopic parameters for 16,000 stars are now available for TESS target characterization.

Identification of 227 stars belonging to the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Abstract

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will provide high precision time-series photometry for millions of stars with at least a half-hour cadence. Of particular interest are the circular regions of 12-degree radius centered around the ecliptic poles that will be observed continuously for a full year. Spectroscopic stellar parameters are desirable to characterize and select suitable targets for TESS, whether they are focused on exploring exoplanets, stellar astrophysics, or Galactic archaeology. Here, we present spectroscopic stellar parameters ($T_{\rm eff}$, $\log g$, [Fe/H], $v \sin i$, $v_{\rm micro}$) for about 16,000 dwarf and subgiant stars in TESS' southern continuous viewing zone. For almost all the stars, we also present Bayesian estimates of stellar properties including distance, extinction, mass, radius, and age using theoretical isochrones. Stellar surface gravity and radius are made available for an additional set of roughly 8,500 red giants. All our target stars are in the range $10<V<13.1$. Among them, we identify and list 227 stars belonging to the Large Magellanic Cloud. The data were taken using the the High Efficiency and Resolution Multi-Element Spectrograph (HERMES, R $\sim 28,000$) at the Anglo-Australian Telescope as part of the TESS-HERMES survey. Comparing our results with the TESS Input Catalog (TIC) shows that the TIC is generally efficient in separating dwarfs and giants, but it has flagged more than hundred cool dwarfs ($T_{\rm eff}< 4800$ K) as giants, which ought to be high-priority targets for the exoplanet search. The catalog can be accessed via http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/tess-hermes/ , or at MAST via https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/tess-hermes/ .