The Pristine survey III: Spectroscopic confirmation of an efficient search for extremely metal-poor stars

TL;DR

The Pristine survey efficiently identifies extremely metal-poor stars using narrow-band photometry, with improved success rates and deeper Galactic halo coverage compared to previous surveys.

Contribution

This work refines photometric selection criteria for extremely metal-poor stars and demonstrates high success rates using medium-resolution spectroscopy.

Findings

70% success rate for [Fe/H] ≤ -2.5

22% success rate for [Fe/H] ≤ -3.0

Improved recovery factor of 4-5 times over previous surveys

Abstract

The Pristine survey is a narrow-band, photometric survey focused around the wavelength region of the Ca II H & K absorption lines, designed to efficiently search for extremely metal-poor stars. In this work, we use the first results of a medium-resolution spectroscopic follow-up to refine the selection criteria for finding extremely metal-poor stars ($\textrm{[Fe/H]} \leq -3.0$) in the Pristine survey. We consider methods by which stars can be selected from available broad-band and infrared photometry plus the additional Pristine narrow-band photometry. The spectroscopic sample presented in this paper consists of 205 stars in the magnitude range $14 < V < 18$. Applying the photometric selection criteria cuts the sample down to 149 stars, and from these we report a success rate of 70% for finding stars with $\textrm{[Fe/H]} \leq -2.5$ and 22% for finding stars with $\textrm{[Fe/H]} \leq -3.0$. These statistics compare favourably with other surveys that search for extremely metal-poor stars, namely an improvement by a factor of $\sim 4-5$ for recovering stars with $\textrm{[Fe/H]} \leq -3.0$. In addition, Pristine covers a fainter magnitude range than its predecessors, and can thus probe deeper into the Galactic halo.