Lambert, David L.

Contact Email: dll@astro.as.utexas.edu
Institute: Department of Astronomy
University of Texas Austin, TX 78712-1083
First Coauthor: Carlos Allende Prieto
Institute: Dept. of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX
Second Coauthor: Katia Cunha
Institute: Observatório Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Subject Area: Surveys & Catalogs
Waveband: Optical
Technique: Spectroscopy
Presentation: Poster Display
Title: A Spectroscopic Survey of Stars in the Solar Neighborhood: Plans and Progress
Abstract: We are using the McDonald 2.7m and the ESO 1.52m to obtain spectra of nearby stars with high-resolution, high S/N, and complete optical coverage. The sample includes all the stars in the Hipparcos Catalogue brighter than M_V = 6.5 (roughly K2 V) within a 7109 pc³ sphere centered at the Sun. We plan to: 1) Provide homogeneous radial velocities with the precision required to exploit in full the accurate proper motions and parallaxes determined by Hipparcos ( $0.1 <\sim \sigma(v) <\sim 1.0$ km s^{- 1}); 2) Provide homogeneous chemical abundances for a large (> 30) number of elements with an accuracy of 0.04 dex; 3) Determine the fundamental stellar parameters for the sample using an array of different methods, comparing the outcome (e.g. model- atmosphere analysis vs. interior mode ls). The survey is 78% complete. The database will be publicly released in approximately 1 year . Among potential applications, we discuss: a) Search for correlations between kinematics and chemical abundances; b) Compare with models of chemical evolution of the Galactic Disk; c) Test protocols for larger lower-quality spectroscopic surveys; d) Compare different estimates of ages. In this paper, we explain the hows and whens. This research is supported by the NSF (grant AST0086321).