Large-scale stellar surveys

We are leading one of the major consortium surveys on the next-generation wide-field high-multiplex 4MOST spectroscopic facility http://www.4most.eu

Our goal is to observe 2.5 million stars in the Milky Way at high-resolution (Figure to the left) to provide decisive constraints on the formation and evolution of the main Galactic components, the disc and the bulge.

Our activities also include the development of new numerical algorithms for the analysis of very large observational datasets of stellar spectra.

The goal is to create a general purpose framework for the analysis of any stellar spectrum, independent of instrument characteristics, type of a star, and the quality of an observed spectrum. This has been a major challenge so far.  Research groups have employed highly specialized software packages developed for an individual observing program.


Bayesian spectroscopy

We have developed a novel method which is free of standard limitations (Schoenrich & Bergemann 2014). The unique feature of the method, which distinguishes it from all other available codes, is the probabilistic approach, which makes use of additional strong constraints from the fundamental theory of stellar evolution and photometry. The method is used for the analysis of large datasets from different stellar surveys, such as the Gaia-ESO survey.