The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Chemical Abundances of Stars in the Halo (CASH) Project

Shetrone, Matthew D.; Frebel, A.; Allende Prieto, C.; Krugler, J.; Sneden, C.; Beers, T.; Rhee, J.; Roederer, I.; Cowan, J. J.
Bibliographical reference

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #408.11; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.207

Advertised on:
1
2009
Number of authors
9
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
The chemical evolution of the Galaxy and the early Universe is a key topic in modern astrophysics. The most metal-poor Galactic halo stars are now frequently used in an attempt to reconstruct the onset of the chemical and dynamical formation processes of the Galaxy. These stars are an easily-accessible local equivalent of the high-redshift Universe, and can thus be used to carry out near-field cosmology. In order to identify large numbers of metal-poor stars we started the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Chemical Abundances of Stars in the Halo (CASH) Project. This University of Texas Long Term Project aims at discovering metal-poor Galactic halo stars selected from various surveys. We present the results of the first two years of HET observations: Thus far, 400 metal-poor star are observed with the high-resolution spectrograph -- the largest data base for these objects so far. Data reduction, stellar parameter determination, and our automated analysis procedure are presented. We also report the abundances found in our stars with which we aim to establish the frequencies of chemically distinct subgroups of metal-poor stars in the halo.