SDSS-IV MaStar: A Large and Comprehensive Empirical Stellar Spectral Library—First Release
Zhao, Gang; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Kinemuchi, Karen; Oravetz, Daniel; Pan, Kaike; Chambers, Kenneth C.; Law, David R.; Holtzman, Jon; Beers, Timothy C.; Magnier, Eugene; Beaton, Rachael L.; Luo, A. -Li; Thomas, Daniel; Maraston, Claudia; Yan, Renbin; Lazarz, Daniel; Imig, Julie; Drory, Niv; Sobeck, Jennifer; Nair, Preethi; Stringfellow, Guy S.; Kaiser, Nick; Stassun, Keivan; Liu, Chao; Bundy, Kevin; Schlafly, Edward; De Lee, Nathan; Wilhelm, Ronald; Galbany, Lluís; Zheng, Zheng; Zhao, Yong-Heng; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Zasowski, Gail; Tremonti, Christy; Majewski, Steven; Blanton, Michael R.; Waters, Christopher; Argudo-Fernández, Maria; Cherinka, Brian; Oravetz, Audrey; Bershady, Matthew; Chen, Yanping; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; McCarthy, Kyle; Meneses-Goytia, Sofia; Falcon Barroso, Jesus; Brownstein, Joel; Talbot, Michael
United States, United Arab Emirates, Russia, United Kingdom, Spain, China, Chile, South Africa
Abstract
We present the first release of the MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar), which is a large, well-calibrated, high-quality empirical library covering the wavelength range 3622-10354 Å at a resolving power of R ∼ 1800. The spectra were obtained using the same instrument as used by the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) project, by piggybacking on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV)/Apache Point Observatory Galaxy Evolution Experiment 2-N (APOGEE-2N) observations. Compared to previous empirical libraries, the MaStar library will have a higher number of stars and a more comprehensive stellar-parameter coverage, especially of cool dwarfs, low-metallicity stars, and stars with different [α/Fe], achieved by a sophisticated target-selection strategy that takes advantage of stellar-parameter catalogs from the literature. This empirical library will provide a new basis for stellar-population synthesis and is particularly well suited for stellar-population analysis of MaNGA galaxies. The first version of the library contains 8646 high-quality per-visit spectra for 3321 unique stars. Compared to photometry, the relative flux calibration of the library is accurate to 3.9% in g - r, 2.7% in r - i, and 2.2% in i - z. The data are released as part of SDSS Data Release 15. We expect the final release of the library to contain more than 10,000 stars.