Modeling Mid-Ultraviolet Spectra. I. Temperatures of Metal-poor Stars

Abstract

Determining the properties of remote globular clusters and elliptical galaxies using evolutionary population synthesis requires a library of reliable model stellar fluxes. Empirical libraries are limited to spectra of stars in the solar neighborhood, with nearly solar abundances and abundance ratios. We report here a first step toward providing a flux library that includes nonsolar abundances, based on calculations from first principles that are calibrated empirically. Because the mid-ultraviolet spectrum of an old stellar system is dominated by the contribution from its main-sequence turnoff stars, we have started by modeling these. We have calculated mid-ultraviolet spectra for the Sun and nine nearby, near-main-sequence stars spanning metallicities from less than 1/100 solar to greater than solar, encompassing a range of light-element-abundance enhancements. We first determined temperatures of eight of the stars by analyzing optical echelle spectra together with the mid-ultraviolet. Both could be matched at the same time only when models with no convective overshoot were adopted and only when an approximate chromosphere was incorporated near the surface of relatively metal-rich models. Extensive modifications to mid-UV line parameters were also required, notably the manual assignment of approximate identifications for mid-UV lines missing from laboratory line lists. Without recourse to additional missing opacity, these measures suffice to reproduce in detail almost the entire mid-UV spectrum of solar-temperature stars up to 1/10 solar metallicity and the region from 2900 to 3100 Å throughout the entire metallicity range. Ramifications for abundance determinations in individual metal-poor stars and for age-metallicity determinations of old stellar systems are briefly discussed, with emphasis on the predictive power of the calculations.

Based on observations obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope of the Space Telescope Science Institute, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Based on observations obtained with the Shane Telescope at Mt. Hamilton, UCO-Lick Observatory.