2004/10/19 by Vincent M. Woolf, George Wallerstein · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Educational Leadership and Practices #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.08515.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 356 (2005) 963-968 · 6 pages, LaTeX. To appear in MNRAS. Full version of Table 2 available at http://www.astro.washington.edu/vmw/mnras/table2.pdf
arxiv created 2004/10/19 · openalex publication_date 2005/01/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report the first survey of chemical abundances in M and K dwarf stars using atomic absorption lines in high resolution spectra. We have measured Fe and Ti abundances in 35 M and K dwarf stars using equivalent widths measured from (lambda / Delta lambda) = 33,000 spectra. Our analysis takes advantage of recent improvements in model atmospheres of low-temperature dwarf stars. The stars have temperatures between 3300 and 4700 K, with most cooler than 4100 K. They cover an iron abundance range of -2.44 < [Fe/H] < +0.16. Our measurements show [Ti/Fe] decreasing with increasing [Fe/H], a trend similar to that measured for warmer stars where abundance analysis techniques have been tested more thoroughly. This study is a step toward the observational calibration of procedures to estimate the metallicity of low-mass dwarf stars using photometric and low-resolution spectral indices.