High Resolution Spectroscopic Follow-up Observation Results for 13 EMP Candidates Selected by Narrow-band Photometry
astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.SR
Submitted: 2026-09-09
Updated: 2026-09-16
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The gist: Extremely metal-poor (EMP; [Fe/H] < -3.0) stars preserve key information about the earliest stages of Galactic chemical evolution.
Terminology
Abstract
Extremely metal-poor (EMP; [Fe/H] < -3.0) stars preserve key information about the earliest stages of Galactic chemical evolution. Based on a training set of spectroscopic metallicities, we constructed catalogs of more than 120,000 EMP candidates from large-scale narrow-band photometric surveys. To validate this approach, we obtained high-resolution CFHT/ESPaDOnS spectra for 13 candidates selected from the SkyMapper-based catalog. The follow-up observation confirms that the narrow-band photometric selection is effective in identifying very metal-poor stars and retaining a substantial EMP fraction: four targets are confirmed as EMP stars, and all targets remain very metal-poor with [Fe/H] < -2.4. The photometric metallicities are systematically lower than the spectroscopic values by 0.44 dex, with a relatively small scatter of 0.19 dex, indicating a systematic offset in the photometric metallicity scale that could be reduced through improved calibration. Abundances for more than 20 chemical species are derived, leading to the identification of a new potassium-enhanced r-II star, J2001-1215. By combining chemical abundances with orbital properties, five stars are found to be dynamically consistent with known Galactic substructures, including Gaia--Sausage--Enceladus, Thamnos, and Sequoia. These stars provide high-resolution chemical measurements for the extremely metal-poor regime of these Galactic substructures. These results underscore the role of narrow-band photometry in efficiently selecting EMP candidates for targeted high-resolution spectroscopic follow-up, thereby enabling detailed chemical and dynamical studies of the early Milky Way.
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