The Past, Present, and Future of Stellar Spectroscopy
A special issue of Universe (ISSN 2218-1997). This special issue belongs to the section "Stellar Astronomy".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 January 2023) | Viewed by 1633
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Unraveling the evolutionary history of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is within our grasp now, propelled by advancements in the multi-object spectrograph. This leap is accompanied by exponential growth in spectroscopic data, with ongoing surveys, such as GALAH, LAMOST, APOGEE, RAVE, Gaia-ESO, DESI, and SDSS-V, routinely collecting millions of stellar spectra. Future surveys, such as 4MOST, Weave, MSE, and MUST, will further expand our power to understand ourselves. Such massive datasets have been the backbone of the field known as Galactic Archeology—which uses millions of stellar tracers to unravel the evolutionary history of our own galaxy.
Significant new challenges are part of this advancement. Uncovering the history of the Milky Way through stars critically depends on the extraction of stellar properties, their fundamental parameters (temperature and gravity), and their chemical composition. As we enter this new era of Galactic Archeology, advancements in stellar spectroscopy will enable us to avoid the bottlenecks that may stymie our explorations.
Fortunately, in recent years, we have advanced significantly in the field of stellar spectroscopy. From the theoretical perspective, we have made enormous inroads into understanding and simulating a 3D stellar atmosphere, something that was not possible previously. Moreover, advanced numerical techniques used to perform ab initio radiative transfer through non-local-thermodynamic-equilibrium models have been routinely adopted in major surveys. At the same time, myriad data-driven and machine learning tools have successfully challenged the status quo in analyzing stellar spectra and fully characterizing stellar properties. All these techniques have been further complemented by breakthroughs in photonic and multi-object fiber positioners.
Advances in stellar spectroscopy not only help us to understand our own galaxy, but also to understand other galaxies besides our own. The full characterization of planet host stars is essential to determining the habitability of exoplanets, one of the major science goals in the recent US decadal survey.
Yet, stellar spectroscopy is often an unsung hero. Research articles in stellar spectroscopy appear sporadically and often do not receive the recognition they truly deserve. Moreover, there is a serious lack of review articles in the literature that summarize many breakthroughs in the field. This Special Issue of stellar spectroscopy boldly aims to fill this void.
We invite leading practitioners in the field to contribute. We welcome review articles as well as research articles related to stellar spectroscopy. With your generous contributions, this Special Issue will undoubtedly be a valuable reference for the astronomy community in the years to come.
Dr. Yuansen Ting
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Universe is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- stellar spectroscopy
- atomic physics
- machine learning
- stellar atmosphere
- radiative transfer
- data-driven models
- photonic
- multi-object spectroscopy
