Stellar Loci V: Photometric Metallicities of 27 Million FGK Stars based on Gaia Early Data Release 3

TL;DR

This paper develops a method to estimate stellar metallicities for 27 million FGK stars using Gaia EDR3 photometry combined with spectroscopic data, enabling large-scale Galactic studies.

Contribution

It introduces a new technique to derive metallicity-dependent stellar loci from Gaia colors, achieving about 0.2 dex precision for a vast stellar sample.

Findings

Metallicity estimates for 27 million stars across the sky.

Achieved typical metallicity precision of 0.2 dex.

Method valid for stars with G ≤ 16 and [Fe/H] ≥ -2.5.

Abstract

We combine LAMOST DR7 spectroscopic data and Gaia EDR3 photometric data to construct high-quality giant (0.7 $< (BP-RP) <$ 1.4) and dwarf (0.5 $< (BP-RP) < $ 1.5) samples in the high Galactic latitude region, with precise corrections for magnitude-dependent systematic errors in the Gaia photometry and careful reddening corrections using empirically determined color- and reddening-dependent coefficients. We use the two samples to build metallicity-dependent stellar loci of Gaia colors for giants and dwarfs, respectively. For a given $(BP-RP)$ color, a one dex change in [Fe/H] results in about a 5 mmag change in $(BP-G)$ color for solar-type stars. These relations are used to determine metallicity estimates from EDR3 colors. Despite the weak sensitivity, the exquisite data quality of these colors enables a typical precision of about $\delta$\,[Fe/H] = 0.2 dex. Our method is valid for FGK stars with $G \leq 16$, [Fe/H] $\geq -2.5$, and $E(B-V) \leq 0.5$. Stars with fainter $G$ magnitudes, lower metallicities, or larger reddening suffer from higher metallicity uncertainties. With the enormous data volume of Gaia, we have measured metallicity estimates for about 27 million stars with 10 $< G \leq 16$ across almost the entire sky, including over 6 million giants and 20 million dwarfs, which can be used for a number of studies. These include investigations of Galactic formation and evolution, the identification of candidate stars for subsequent high-resolution spectroscopic follow-up, the identification of wide binaries, and to obtain metallicity estimates of stars for asteroseismology and exoplanet research.