ASPCAP: The Apogee Stellar Parameter and Chemical Abundances Pipeline

Understand

The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) has built the largest moderately high-resolution (R=22, 500) spectroscopic map of the stars across the Milky Way, and including dust-obscured areas.

• The APOGEE Stellar Parameter and Chemical Abundances Pipeline (ASPCAP) is the software developed for the automated analysis of these spectra.
• ASPCAP determines atmospheric parameters and chemical abundances from observed spectra by comparing observed spectra to libraries of theoretical spectra, using chi-2 minimization in a multidimensional parameter space.
• The package consists of a fortran90 code that does the actual minimization, and a wrapper IDL code for book-keeping and data handling.