The Sun is used as the fundamental standard in chemical abundance studies, thus it is important to know whether the solar abundance pattern is representative of the solar neighborhood. Albeit at low precision (0.05 – 0.10 dex) the Sun seems to be a typical solar-metallicity disk star, at high precision (0.01 dex) its abundance pattern seems abnormal when compared to solar twins. The Sun shows a deficiency of refractory elements that could be due to the formation of terrestrial planets. The formation of giant planets may also introduce a signature in the chemical composition of stars. We discuss both planet signatures and also the enhancement of neutron-capture elements in the solar twin 18 Sco.

We present a critical review of the construction of 3D model atmospheres with emphasis on modeling challenges. We discuss the basic physical processes which give rise to the effects which set 3D models apart from 1D standard models. We consider elemental abundances derived from molecular features, and the determination of the microturbulence with 3D models. The examples serve as illustration of the limitations inherent to 1D, however, also to 3D modeling. We find that 3D models can provide constraints on the microturbulence parameter, and predict substantial corrections for abundances derived from molecular species.

One of the major tasks in interpretation of data from large-scale stellar surveys is to determine the fundamental atmospheric parameters such as effective temperature, surface gravity, and metallicity. In most on-going and upcoming projects, they are derived spectroscopically, relying on classical one-dimensional (1D) model atmospheres and the assumption of LTE. This review discusses the present achievements and problems of non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) line-formation calculations for FGK-type stars. The topics that are addressed include (i) the construction of comprehensive model atoms for the chemical elements with complex term system, (ii) possible systematic errors inherent in classical LTE spectroscopic determinations of stellar parameters and chemical abundances, (iii) the uncertainties in final NLTE results caused by the uncertainties in atomic data, and (iv) applications of the NLTE line-formation calculations coupled to the spatial and temporal average 〈3D〉 models to spectroscopic analyses.

The advent of Milky Way high-resolution spectroscopic surveys has brought our attention to the importance of precise chemical abundance measurements to disentangle the stellar population puzzle of the Galaxy. Moreover, automated stellar parameters are the bedrock of Galactic spectroscopic surveys science. They allow a rapid and homogeneous processing of extensive data sets, necessary for an efficient scientific return. In this review, I discuss the different parametrization techniques, focusing on the automated determination of individual element abundances. Each of them has its optimal application conditions that mainly depend on the computation time constraints, the spectral resolution, the wavelength domain, the data signal-to-noise ratio and parameter degeneracy problems. The main algorithms in the literature are also reviewed.

Accurate characterization of stellar populations is of prime importance to correctly understand the formation and evolution process of our Galaxy. The field of asteroseismology has been particularly successful in such an endeavor providing fundamental parameters for large samples of stars in different evolutionary phases. We present our results on determinations of masses, radii, and distances of stars in the CoRoT and Kepler fields, showing that we can map and date different regions of the galactic disk and distinguish gradients in the distribution of stellar properties at different heights. We further review how asteroseismic determinations can produce a unique set of constraints, including ages, outside the solar neighborhood for galactic chemical evolution models.

We present the abundance analysis of three very metal poor stars, CS 22166-0030 ([Fe/H]=−2.96), CS 22186-0005 ([Fe/H]=−2.70), and CS 30344-0033 ([Fe/H]=−2.90). Our study is based on high resolution spectra which were obtained from SARG (on TNG), HARPS (on 3.6m), and UVES (on VLT) spectrographs and one-dimensional ATLAS9 model atmospheres. We derived the abundances for 2, 9, and 16 atomic species in the spectrum of CS 22166-0030, CS 22186-0005, and CS 30344-0033, respectively. The Na and Mg abundances of CS 22166-0030 are highly under-abundant with respect to the solar values. The abundance patterns of CS 22186-0005 and CS 30344-0033 are consistent with the other halo stars within abundance uncertainties.

Solar oxygen abundance is a key parameter for the studies of solar physics. Oxygen abundances of cool stars with different metallicities are important for understanding the galactic chemical evolution. We present non-LTE calculations for O I with the classical plane-parallel (1D) model atmospheres for a set of stellar parameters corresponding to stars of spectral types from A to K. Non-LTE leads to strengthening the O I lines, and the difference between the non-LTE and LTE abundances (non-LTE correction) is negative. The departures from LTE grow toward higher effective temperature and lower surface gravity. In the entire temperature range and log g = 4, the non-LTE correction does not exceed 0.05 dex in absolute value for lines of O I in the visible spectral range. The non-LTE corrections are significantly larger for the infrared O I 7771-5, 8446 Å lines and reach an order of magnitude for A-type stars. To differentiate the effects of inelastic collisions with electrons and neutral hydrogen atoms on the statistical equilibrium (SE) of O I, we derived the oxygen abundance for the five well studied A-type stars. For each star, non-LTE largely removes the difference between the infrared and visible lines found in LTE. In the case of cool stars (Sun and Procyon), inelastic collisions with H I affect the SE of O I, and agreement between the abundances from different lines is achieved when using the Drawin's formalism for collisional rates calculations. The solar mean oxygen abundance from the six lines is ϵ = 8.74 ± 0.05, when using the MAFAGS-OS solar model atmosphere and ϵ = 8.78 ± 0.03, when applying the 3D corrections taken from the literature. The non-LTE abundances of oxygen are derived for the sample of cool dwarfs with various metallicities on high-resolution spectra observed in the Lick observatory.

We determined NLTE abundances of Na in the atmospheres of 80 red giants including the 33 stars of the thin disk, 35 stars of the thick disk and 12 stars of Hercules stream.

We derive the pattern speed of the Galactic bar from the analysis of the kinematics of the Hercules stream at different Galactocentric radii with RAVE, assuming that Hercules is caused by the bar. We find a well constrained pattern speed of Ωb=1.98+0.04−0.08 Ωo, where Ω0 is the local circular frequency.

We have applied the chemical tagging technique to study three old Open Clusters (NGC2632/Praesepe, NGC752 and NGC1817) by using our own spectral analysis code.

In its first two observing seasons, the LEGUE (LAMOST Experiment for Galactic Understanding and Exploration; Deng et al., Zhao et al. 2012) survey has obtained ~1.7 million science-quality spectra. We apply corrections to the PPMXL proper motions (PMs; Roeser et al. 2010) as a function of position, as determined from the measured PMs of extragalactic objects discovered in LAMOST spectra (see Fig. 1, left and center panels). LAMOST radial velocities and corrected PMs are used to derive 3D space velocities for ~480,000 F-stars (assuming MV=4 to derive distances). The right panel of Fig. 1 shows the radial component of Galactic cylindrical velocities (VR) for stars between 7.8<RGC<9.8 kpc (with R⊙,GC=7.8 kpc) as a function of height (Z) and angle (θ) from the Galactic X-axis. Each dot represents the average position of stars in a 200x200 pc box, color-coded by the mean VR of those stars. Assuming circularrotation, VR should be zero. This is true on average for θ>0° (3rd Galactic quadrant), but not for θ<0°. The velocities are also asymmetric across the Galactic plane for θ<0° (2nd quadrant), with most positions 〈 VR 〉> 0 above the disk (radially outward), and 〈 VR 〉 < 0 below the disk. Similar structure to this apparent “shearing” motion has been seen in RAVE (e.g., Williams et al. 2013; Siebert et al. 2012), and SDSS (Widrow et al. 2012).

The focal ratio degradation (FRD) of optical fibers is a major source causing light loss to astronomical multi-fibre instruments like LAMOST (Oliveira, A. C, et al. 2005). The effects of stress and twist during mounting and rotation of the fibers could change the FRD for individual fibers (Clayton 1989), which means that the transmission efficiency of each individual fiber will vary. We investigate such throughput variation among LAMOST fibers and its relevance to the intensity of sky emission lines (Garstang 1989) over the full wavelength coverage. On the basis of the work, we present an approach to correct the varied fiber throughput by measuring the strength of the sky emission lines as the secondary throughput correction.

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST, i.e. Guoshoujing Telescope) has finished its pilot survey (from October 2011 to June 2012). With about 3000 galaxy spectra collected during the pilot survey, we are planning to analyze the stellar populations of these galaxies in two different ways respectively. One is Lick indices (such as Hβ, Mgb, 〈Fe〉 etc., Worthey et al. 1994), which are not sensitive to the flux calibration, and another one is the full optical spectra fitting (Chen et al. 2009, 2010). Then we can evaluate the affects of flux calibration errors on stellar population analysis by comparing the results of the two methods′. Here we briefly show the early experiments aiming to test the consistency and/or difference between the two methods.

Approximately 80 stars from the thin disk, the thick disk and the halo of the Galaxy, in the range of −3.0 < [Fe/H] < +0.5, surface gravity of 3.0 < logg < 4.7 and temperature of 4500 K < Teff < 6500 K, have been observed with the Shane/Hamilton and CFHT/Espadons spectrographs in order to carry out a systematic NLTE study of nearby stars in a consistent way. We will determine reliably stellar parameters and determine precise elemental abundances via a comprehensive NLTE analysis of the spectral lines of Li, Na, Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, Sc, Mn, Fe, Sr, Zr, Ba, Nd, and Eu elements. Finally, we aim to investigate the chemical evolution of the Galaxy through different stellar populations based on the NLTE abundances for total 15 elements.

The Chinese Astronomical Data Center (CAsDC) is a member of World Data System, hosted at National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences(NAOC). The CAsDC keeps close collaboration with IVOA, WDS and CODATA. The whole set of LAMOST data, including raw data and data products, are hosted at the CAsDC. Data resources and services of the CAsDC are introduced.

We found that the thick disk stars of the Galaxy should form from gas-rich mergers and minor merger or radial migration.

With the concern that observed flux is very sensitive upon fiber positions, we develop a novel approach measuring the error of fiber positions in this work. More specifically, we compute two orthogonal groups of the flux ratio before and after moving the fiber a few arcseconds, and correct the system coordinate transformation based on the computed fiber position error.

Based on the South Galactic Cap U-band Sky Survey (SCUSS) and SDSS observation, we adopted the star-count method to analyze the stellar distribution in different directions of the Galaxy. We find that these model parameters may be variable with observed direction, which cannot simply be attributed to statistical errors.

We present a matched-filter, surface density map of the “300 km/s” stream recently discovered in the vicinity of the ultrafaint dwarf galaxy Segue 1.

Atomic diffusion (AD) is a slow continuous process that depletes heavy elements such as Fe from the surface layers during the MS lifetime of a star. As the star evolves to the RGB the effect of depletion disappears as its deep outer convection zone restores the original composition in the atmosphere. Mixing processes at work below the outer convection zone reduce the effect of AD as they hinder the downward diffusion of heavy elements, and thus a more efficient mixing will cause flattened diffusion trends. Such additional mixing (AddMix) seems to be needed to reproduce observed abundance trends. Although the inclusion of extra mixing in a layer just below the convective envelope is remarkably successful in describing the observed abundance trends in NGC 6397 ([Fe/H] = −2.1), the description applied is in no way unique or physically satisfying. To better understand the physics and place additional constraints on the possible variation of extra mixing with stellar parameters such as metallicity, we conducted a study, similar to that presented in Korn et al. (2007), of another metal-poor GC NGC 6752 ([Fe/H] = −1.6). In Fig. 1 we show the results, published in Gruyters et al. (2013), which shows weak yet systematic abundance trends with evolutionary phase for Fe, Sc, Ti and Ca. The trends are best explained by stellar structure models including AD with efficient AddMix. As a consequence sub-primordial stellar lithium abundances of the stars on the Spite plateau can be brought up to match the WMAP-calibrated Big Bang nucleosynthesis predictions to within the mutual 1-sigma errors.