SSPP Temperature Estimate from InfraRed Flux Method (IRFM)

The SSPP now adopts a much improved color (g-i)-temperature relation, the InfraRed Flux Method (IRFM). This relation is derived from about 14,000 stars, having both SDSS (u, g, r, i, z) and near infrared (J, H, and K) photometry, as well as surface gravity and metallicity from the SSPP. The adopted relation for obtaining the IRFM temperature is

T_{eff, IRFM} = 5040/(a0 + a1×X + a2×X² + a3×X³ + a4×X×[Fe/H] + a5×[Fe/H] + a6×[Fe/H]²),

where, X is g-i and a0=0.6787, a1=0.3116, a2=0.0573, a3=-0.0406, a4=-0.0163, a5=-0.0021, and a6=-0.0003 for log g ≥ 3.7, while a0=0.6919, a1=0.3091, a2=0.0688, a3=-0.0428, a4=-0.0078, a5=-0.0086, and a6=-0.0042 for log g < 3.7. For details on how this relationship was derived by L. Casagrande, please see Rockosi et al. in prep.

As noted in the equation above, because the IRFM relation depends on the metallicity and surface gravity of the stars in question, an iterative procedure is used for the IRFM temperature estimate. The metallicity and gravity determined by NGS1 are used in this equation to obtain the first guess for effective temperature. With this first pass of temperature held fixed during the χ² minimization in the NGS1 synthetic spectra grid, a new set of log g and [Fe/H] is obtained. These log g and [Fe/H] are again plugged into the derived color-temperature relation to determine the final estimate of T_eff. This IRFM temperature estimate is considered in averaging to obtain the adopted T_eff for the range of -0.3 ≤ g-r ≤ 1.3 and S/N ≥ 10.