Line Identification in the Solar Spectrum

• Grant number: 14/00502-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2014
• Effective date (End): February 28, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Astronomy - Stellar Astrophysics
• Principal Investigator: Lucimara Pires Martins
• Grantee: Jessica Reis Kitamura
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Exatas e Tecnológicas. Universidade Cruzeiro do Sul (UNICSUL). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Synthetic stellar spectra are widely used in many different applications in astronomy, from determining atmospheric parameters to being used as ingredients to the study of the stellar population of galaxies. One of the main input parameters of spectral synthesis codes that generate these spectra are the atomic and molecular line lists, which contain the atomic parameters of the absorption lines that should appear in these spectra. Although the most recent lists contain millions of lines, just a very small fraction is actually measured in the laboratory. Because of that for many of these lines the errors in the parameters can be as high as 200%. Besides that, we do not know all the lines that are present in stars. Even for the Sun, our closest and most studied star, the synthetic spectra still have many lines missing. In this sense, synthetic spectra are still far away from being able to reproduce the observed stellar spectra with precision. The need to improve the line lists used to generate synthetic stellar spectra becomes urgent, since modern telescopes are producing observed stellar spectra with increasing high quality and there are no proper tools to analyze them. In this work we will develop a careful strategy to compare the Sun's observed and synthetic spectra to try to identify lines with significant errors in their atomic parameters - as, for example, lines for which the central wavelength is wrong. With that we will be able to make it available for the community a more precise and complete atomic line list to be used with spectral synthesis codes.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

KITAMURA, JESSICA R.; MARTINS, LUCIMARA P.; COELHO, PAULA. A study on missing lines in the synthetic solar spectrum near the Ca triplet. Astronomy & Astrophysics, v. 600, APR 2017. (14/00502-9, 15/14575-0)

KITAMURA, JESSICA R.; MARTINS, LUCIMARA P.; COELHO, PAULA. A study on missing lines in the synthetic solar spectrum near the Ca triplet. ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS, v. 600, p. 11-pg., 2017-04-01. (15/14575-0, 14/00502-9)