Mapping the Milky Way with LAMOSTⅠ:method and overview

We present a statistical method to derive the stellar density profiles of the Milky Way from spectroscopic survey data, taking into account selection effects. We assume the selection function, which can be altered during observations and data reductions, of the spectroscopic survey is based on photometric colors and magnitude. Then the underlying selection function for a line-of-sight can be recovered well by comparing the distribution of the spectroscopic stars in a color-magnitude plane with that of the photometric dataset. Subsequently, the stellar density profile along a line-of-sight can be derived from the spectroscopically measured stellar density profile multiplied by the selection function. The method is validated using Galaxia mock data with two different selection functions. We demonstrate that the derived stellar density profiles reconstruct the true ones well not only for the full set of targets, but also for sub-populations selected from the full dataset. Finally, the method is applied to map the density pro- files for the Galactic disk and halo, using the LAMOST RGB stars. The Galactic disk extends to about R = 19 kpc, where the disk still contributes about 10% to the total stellar surface density. Beyond this radius, the disk smoothly transitions to the halo without any truncation, bending or breaking. Moreover, no over-density corresponding to the Monoceros ring is found in the Galactic anti-center direction. The disk shows moderate north-south asymmetry at radii larger than 12 kpc. On the other hand, the R-Z tomographic map directly shows that the stellar halo is substantially oblate within a Galactocentric radius of 20 kpc and gradually becomes nearly spherical beyond 30 kpc.

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST)

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST, also called the Guo Shou Jing Telescope) is a special reflecting Schmidt telescope. LAMOST’s special design allows both a large aperture (effective aperture of 3.6 m–4.9 m) and a wide field of view (FOV) (5°). It has an innovative active reflecting Schmidt configuration which continuously changes the mirror’s surface that adjusts during the observation process and combines thin deformable mirror active optics with segmented active optics. Its primary mirror (6.67m×6.05 m) and active Schmidt mirror (5.74m×4.40 m) are both segmented, and composed of 37 and 24 hexagonal sub-mirrors respectively. By using a parallel controllable fiber positioning technique, the focal surface of 1.75 m in diameter can accommodate 4000 optical fibers. Also, LAMOST has 16 spectrographs with 32 CCD cameras. LAMOST will be the telescope with the highest rate of spectral acquisition. As a national large scientific project, the LAMOST project was formally proposed in 1996, and approved by the Chinese government in 1997. The construction started in 2001, was completed in 2008 and passed the official acceptance in June 2009. The LAMOST pilot survey was started in October 2011 and the spectroscopic survey will launch in September 2012. Up to now, LAMOST has released more than 480 000 spectra of objects. LAMOST will make an important contribution to the study of the large-scale structure of the Universe, structure and evolution of the Galaxy, and cross-identification of multiwaveband properties in celestial objects.

The first data release(DR1) of the LAMOST regular survey

The Large sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope（LAMOST） general survey is a spectroscopic survey that will eventually cover approximately half of the celestial sphere and collect 10 million spectra of stars, galaxies and QSOs. Objects in both the pilot survey and the first year regular survey are included in the LAMOST DR1. The pilot survey started in October 2011 and ended in June 2012, and the data have been released to the public as the LAMOST Pilot Data Release in August 2012. The regular survey started in September 2012, and completed its first year of operation in June 2013. The LAMOST DR1 includes a total of 1202 plates containing 2 955 336 spectra, of which 1 790 879 spectra have observed signalto-noise ratio（SNR） ≥ 10. All data with SNR ≥ 2 are formally released as LAMOST DR1 under the LAMOST data policy. This data release contains a total of 2 204 696 spectra, of which 1 944 329 are stellar spectra, 12 082 are galaxy spectra and 5017 are quasars. The DR1 not only includes spectra, but also three stellar catalogs with measured parameters： late A,FGK-type stars with high quality spectra（1 061 918 entries）, A-type stars（100 073 entries）, and M-type stars（121 522 entries）. This paper introduces the survey design, the observational and instrumental limitations, data reduction and analysis, and some caveats. A description of the FITS structure of spectral files and parameter catalogs is also provided.

LAMOST/HRS spectroscopic analysis of two new Li-rich giants

Two Li-rich candidates,TYC 1338-1410-1 and TYC 2825-596-1,were observed by the new high-resolution echelle spectrograph,LAMOST/HRS.Based on their high-resolution and high-signal-tonoise ratio(SNR)spectra,we derived stellar parameters and abundances of 14 important elements for the two candidates.The stellar parameters and lithium abundances indicate that they are Li-rich K-type giants,and having A(Li)NLTE and 2.91 dex,respectively.Our analysis suggests that TYC 1338-1410-1 is probably a red giant branch(RGB)star at the bump stage,while TYC 2825-596-1 is most likely to be a core helium-burning red clump(RC)star.The line profiles of both spectra indicate that the two Li-rich giants are slow rotators and do not show infrared(IR)excess.We conclude that engulfment is not the lithium enrichment mechanism for either star.The enriched lithium of TYC 1338-1410-1 could be created via the Cameron-Fowler mechanism,while the lithium excess in TYC 2825-596-1 could be associated with either non-canonical mixing processes or He-flash.

Spectral classification of stars based on LAMOST spectra

In this work, we select spectra of stars with high signal-to-noise ratio from LAMOST data and map their MK classes to the spectral features. The equivalent widths of prominent spectral lines, which play a similar role as multi-color photometry, form a clean stellar locus well ordered by MK classes. The advantage of the stellar locus in line indices is that it gives a natural and continuous classification of stars consistent with either broadly used MK classes or stellar astrophysical parameters. We also employ an SVM-based classification algorithm to assign MK classes to LAMOST stellar spectra. We find that the completenesses of the classifications are up to 90% for A and G type stars, but they are down to about 50% for OB and K type stars. About 40% of the OB and K type stars are mis-classified as A and G type stars,respectively. This is likely due to the difference in the spectral features between late B type and early A type stars or between late G and early K type stars being very weak. The relatively poor performance of the automatic MK classification with SVM suggests that the direct use of line indices to classify stars is likely a more preferable choice.

Data release of the LAMOST pilot survey

This paper describes the data release of the LAMOST pilot survey, which includes data reduction, calibration, spectral analysis, data products and data access. The accuracy of the released data and the information about the FITS headers of spectra are also introduced. The released data set includes 319 000 spectra and a catalog of these objects.

A method of measuring the [α/Fe] ratios from the spectra of the LAMOST survey

The [α/Fe] ratios in stars are good tracers to probe the formation history of stellar populations and the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. The spectroscopic survey of LAMOST provides a good opportunity to determine [α/Fe] of millions of stars in the Galaxy. We present a method of measuring the [α/Fe]ratios from LAMOST spectra using the template-matching technique of the LSP3 pipeline. We use three test samples of stars selected from the ELODIE and MILES libraries, as well as the LEGUE survey to validate our method. Based on the test results, we conclude that our method is valid for measuring [α/Fe]from low-resolution spectra acquired by the LAMOST survey. Within the range of the stellar parameters Teff= [5000, 7500] K, log g = [1.0, 5.0] dex and [Fe/H]= [onsistent with values derived from high-resolution spectra,-1.5, ＋0.5] dex, our [α/Fe] measurements are c and the accuracy of our [α/Fe] measurements from LAMOST spectra is better than 0.1 dex with spectral signal-to-noise higher than 20.

A catalog of early-type emission-line stars and Hα line profiles from LAMOST DR2

We present a catalog including 11 204 spectra of 10436 early-type emission-line stars from LAMOST DR2, among which 9752 early-type emission-line spectra are newly discovered. For these early- type emissionqine stars, we discuss the morphological and physical properties of their low-resolution spectra. In this spectral sample, the Hα emission profiles display a wide variety of shapes. Based on the Hα line profiles, these spectra are categorized into five distinct classes： single-peak emission, single-peak emission in absorption, double-peak emission, double-peak emission in absorption, and P-Cygni profiles. To better understand what causes the Hc~ line profiles, we divide these objects into four types from the perspective of physical classification, which include classical Be stars, Herbig Ae/Be stars, close binaries and spectra contaminated by H n regions. The majority of Herbig Ae/Be stars and classical Be stars are identified and separated using a （H-K, K-W1） color-color diagram. We also discuss 31 binary systems that are listed in the SIMBAD on-line catalog and identify 3600 spectra contaminated by HⅡ regions after cross-matching with positions in the Dubout-Crillon catalog. A statistical analysis of line profiles versus classifications is then conducted in order to understand the distribution of Hc~ profiles for each type in our sample. Finally, we also provide a table of 172 spectra with Fen emission lines and roughly calculate stellar wind velocities for seven spectra with P-Cygni profiles.

Halo stream candidates in the LAMOST DR2

We have cross-matched the LAMOST DR2 with the WISE, 2MASS and PPMXL catalogs and obtained a sample of 64 819 FGK metal-poor dwarfs with [Fe/H]〈-0.7, distances within 2 kpc from the Sun and reliable kinematics（space velocities,angular momenta and eccentricities）. With a detection strategy for halo streams provided by Klement et al, nine significant ＂phase-space overdensities＂ with stars on very similar orbits are identified from this sample. Among these overdensities, three were previously known and six are new stream candidates. The kinematics and metallicities of these stream candidates are then analyzed; they have typical halo characteristics.We have extracted the most probable members of each halo stream according to their angles with respect to the North Galactic Pole and investigate the distribution of the angular momenta to further verify their existences. Detailed study of elemental abundances for these members based on high resolution and high signal-to-noise spectra from follow-up observations in the near future is of high interest to understand the origin of these streams.

Radial velocity measurements from LAMOST medium-resolution spectroscopic observations: a pointing towards the Kepler field

Radial velocity is one of the key measurements in understanding the fundamental properties of stars, stellar clusters and the Galaxy. A plate of stars in the Kepler field was observed in May of 2018 with the medium-resolution spectrographs of LAMOST, aiming to test the performance of this new system which is the upgraded equipment of LAMOST after the first five-year regular survey. We present our analysis on the radial velocity measurements(RVs) derived from these data. The results show that slight and significant systematic errors exist among the RVs obtained from the spectra collected by different spectrographs and exposures, respectively. After correcting the systematic errors with different techniques, the precision of RVs reaches ～1.3,～1.0,～0.5 and ～0.3 km s^(-1) at S/Nr = 10, 20, 50 and 100, respectively. Comparing with the RVs of standard stars from the APOGEE survey, our RVs are calibrated with a zero-point shift of～7 km s^(-1). The results indicate that the LAMOST medium-resolution spectroscopic system may provide RVs with a reasonable accuracy and precision for the selected targets.

FGK 22 μm excess stars in LAMOST DR2 stellar catalog

Since the release of the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope（LAMOST）catalog, we have had the opportunity to use the LAMOST DR2 stellar catalog and the WISE All-Sky Data Release catalog to search for 22 μm excess candidates. In this paper, we present 10 FGK candidates which show an excess in the infrared at 22 μm. All the 10 sources are newly identified 22 μm excess candidates.Of these 10 stars, five stars are F type and five stars are G type. The criterion for selecting candidates is Ks[22].387. In addition, we present the spectral energy distributions covering wavelengths from the optic-≥0al to mid-infrared band. Most of them show an obvious excess from the 12 μm band and three candidates even show excess from 3.4 μm. To characterize the amount of dust, we also estimate the fractional luminosity of10 22 μm excess candidates.

LAMOST medium-resolution spectral survey of Galactic nebulae(LAMOST-MRS-N):subtraction of geocoronal Hαemission

We introduce a method of subtracting geocoronal Hαemissions from the spectra of LAMOST medium-resolution spectral survey of Galactic nebulae(LAMOST-MRS-N).The flux ratios of the Hαsky line to the adjacent OHλ6554 single line do not show a pattern or gradient distribution in a plate.More interestingly,the ratio is well correlated to solar altitude,which is the angle of the Sun relative to the Earth’s horizon.It is found that the ratio decreases from 0.8 to 0.2 with the decreasing solar altitude from–17 to–73 degree.Based on this relation,which is described by a linear function,we can construct the Hαsky component and subtract it from the science spectrum.This method has been applied to the LAMOST-MRSN data,and the contamination level of the Hαsky to nebula is reduced from 40%to less than 10%.The new generated spectra will significantly improve the accuracy of the classifications and the measurements of physical parameters of Galactic nebulae.

A search for Mg-poor stars using LAMOST survey data

Most Galactic metal-poor stars exhibit enhanced α-abundances（e.g.[Mg/Fe] ～ ＋0.4） according to previous studies of stellar chemical compositions.However, a handful of metal-poor stars with large deficiencies in Mg（e.g. [Mg/Fe]～-0.2） show severe departures from this α-enhancement trend. The sub-solar[Mg/Fe] ratios of these anomalous stars indicate that they possess different chemical enrichment histories than the majority of Galactic metal-poor stars. In previous work,we presented a method to select Mg-poor metal-poor stars from low-resolution SDSS spectra based on a spectral matching technique. In this paper, a similar method is applied to low-resolution（R ～ 1800） LAMOST spectra. Stellar [Mg/Fe] abundances are determined by using stellar parameters delivered by the LAMOST Data Release2 catalog. From a sample of ～ 60 000 stars with atmospheric parameters in the range Teff = [5500, 6500] K and [Fe/H] = [-2.4, ＋0.5], we select 15 candidate Mg-poor metal-poor stars.

On the metallicity gradients of the Galactic disk as revealed by LSS-GAC red clump stars

Using a sample of over 70 000 red clump（RC） stars with 5%–10% distance accuracy selected from the LAMOST Spectroscopic Survey of the Galactic Anti-center（LSS-GAC）, we study the radial and vertical gradients of the Galactic disk（s） mainly in the anti-center direction, covering a significant volume of the disk in the range of projected Galactocentric radius 7 ≤ RGC ≤ 14 kpc and height from the Galactic midplane 0 ≤ ｜Z ｜ ≤ 3 kpc. Our analysis shows that both the radial and vertical metallicity gradients are negative across much of the volume of the disk that is probed, and they exhibit significant spatial variations. Near the solar circle（7 ≤ RGC ≤ 11.5 kpc）, the radial gradient has a moderately steep, negative slope of-0.08 dex kpc-1near the midplane（｜Z ｜ 〈 0.1 kpc）, and the slope flattens with increasing ｜Z ｜. In the outer disk（11.5 〈 RGC ≤ 14 kpc）, the radial gradients have an essentially constant, much less steep slope of-0.01 dex kpc-1at all heights above the plane, suggesting that the outer disk may have experienced an evolutionary path different from that of the inner disk. The vertical gradients are found to flatten largely with increasing RGC. However, the vertical gradient of the lower disk（0 ≤ ｜Z ｜ ≤ 1 kpc）is found to flatten with RGC quicker than that of the upper disk（1 〈 ｜Z ｜ ≤ 3 kpc）.Our results should provide strong constraints on the theory of disk formation and evolution, as well as the underlying physical processes that shape the disk（e.g. gas flows,radial migration, and internal and external perturbations）.

19 low mass hypervelocity star candidates from the first data release of the LAMOST survey

Hypervelocity stars are believed to be ejected out from the Galactic center through dynamical interactions between（binary） stars and the central supermassive black hole（s）. In this paper, we report 19 low mass F/G/K type hypervelocity star candidates from over one million stars found in the first data release of the LAMOST regular survey. We determine the unbound probability for each candidate using a MonteCarlo simulation by assuming a non-Gaussian proper-motion error distribution, and Gaussian heliocentric distance and radial velocity error distributions. The simulation results show that all the candidates have unbound possibilities over 50% as expected,and one of them may even exceed escape velocity with over 90% probability. In addition, we compare the metallicities of our candidates with the metallicity distribution functions of the Galactic bulge, disk, halo and globular clusters, and conclude that the Galactic bulge or disk is likely the birth place for our candidates.

Galactic disk bulk motions as revealed by the LSS-GAC DR2

We report a detailed investigation of the bulk motions of the nearby Galactic stellar disk, based on three samples selected from the LSS-GAC DR2： a global sample containing 0.57 million FGK dwarfs out to ～2 kpc, a local subset of the global sample consisting of ～5400 stars within 150 pc, and an anti-center sample containing ～4400AFGK dwarfs and red clump stars within windows a few degrees wide centered on the Galactic Anti-center. The global sample is used to construct a three-dimensional map of bulk motions of the Galactic disk from the solar vicinity out to ～2 kpc with a spatial resolution of ～250 pc. Typical values of the radial and vertical components of bulk motion range from-15 km s-1to 15 km s-1; in contrast, the lag behind the circular motion dominates the azimuthal component by up to ～15 km s-1. The map reveals spatially coherent, kpc-scale stellar flows in the disk, with typical velocities of a few tens of km s-1. Bending- and breathing-mode perturbations are clearly visible,and vary smoothly across the disk plane. Our data also reveal higher-order perturbations, such as breaks and ripples, in the profiles of vertical motion versus height. From the local sample, we find that stars from different populations exhibit very different patterns of bulk motion. Finally, the anti-center sample reveals a number of peaks in stellar number density in the line-of-sight velocity versus distance distribution, with the nearer ones apparently related to the known moving groups. The ＂velocity bifurcation＂ reported by Liu et al. at Galactocentric radii 10–11 kpc is confirmed. However,just beyond this distance, our data also reveal a new triple-peaked structure.

M Dwarf catalog of LAMOST general survey data release one

We present a spectroscopic catalog of 93 619 M dwarfs from the first data release of the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope（LAMOST）general survey. During sample selection, M giant contamination was eliminated using2 MASS photometry and Ca H/TiO molecular indices. For each spectrum, the spectral subtype and values are provided including radial velocity, Hα equivalent width, a series of prominent molecular band indices, and the metal–sensitive parameter ζ, as well as distances and the space motions for high S/N objects. In addition, Hα emission lines are measured to examine the magnetic activity properties of M dwarfs and 7179 active ones are found. In particular, a subsample with significant variation in magnetic activity is revealed through observations from different epochs. Finally, statistical analysis for this sample is performed, including the metallicity classification, the distribution of molecular band indices and their errors.

A comparison of stellar atmospheric parameters from the LAMOST and APOGEE datasets

We have compared stellar parameters, including temperature, gravity and metallicity, for common stars in the LAMOST DR2 and SDSS DR12/APOGEE datasets. It is found that the LAMOST dataset provides a more well-defined red clump feature than the APOGEE dataset in the Teff versus log g diagram. With this advantage, we have separated red clump stars from red giant stars, and attempt to establish calibrations between the two datasets for the two groups of stars. The results show that there is a good consistency in temperature with a calibration close to the one-to-one line, and we can establish a satisfactory metallicity calibration of[Fe/H]APOGEE= 1.18[Fe/H]LAMOST ＋ 0.11 with a scatter of ～ 0.08 dex for both the red clump and red giant branch samples. For gravity, there is no correlation for red clump stars between the two datasets, and scatters around the calibrations of red giant stars are substantial. We found two main sources of scatter in log g for red giant stars. One is a group of stars with 0.00253 × Teff- 8.67 〈 log g 〈 2.6 located in the forbidden region, and the other is the contaminated red clump stars, which could be picked out from the unmatched region where stellar metallicity is not consistent with position in the Teff versus log g diagram. After excluding stars in these two regions,we have established two calibrations for red giant stars, log g APOGEE = 0.000615 ×Teff,LAMOST＋ 0.697 × log g LAMOST- 2.208（σ = 0.150） for [Fe/H] 〉-1 and log gAPOGEE= 0.000874×Teff,LAMOST＋0.588×log g LAMOST-3.117（σ = 0.167）for [Fe/H] 〈-1. The calibrations are valid for stars with Teff = 3800- 5400 K and log g = 0- 3.8 dex, and are useful in work aiming to combine the LAMOST and APOGEE datasets in a future study. In addition, we find that an SVM method based on asteroseismic log g is a good way to greatly improve the accuracy of gravity for these two regions, at least in the LAMOST dataset.

M-giant star candidates identified in LAMOST DR 1

We perform a discrimination procedure with the spectral index diagram of TiO 5 and Ca H2＋Ca H3 to separate M giants from M dwarfs. Using the M giant spectra identified from LAMOST DR1 with high signal-to-noise ratio, we have successfully assembled a set of M giant templates, which show more reliable spectral features. Combining with the M dwarf/subdwarf templates in Zhong et al., we present an extended library of M-type templates which includes not only M dwarfs with a well-defined temperature and metallicity grid but also M giants with subtypes from M0 to M6. Then, the template-fitting algorithm is used to automatically identify and classify M giant stars from LAMOST DR1. The resulting catalog of M giant stars is cross-matched with 2MASS J H Ks and WISE W1/W2 infrared photometry. In addition, we calculated the heliocentric radial velocity of all M giant stars by using the cross-correlation method with the template spectrum in a zero-velocity rest frame.Using the relationship between the absolute infrared magnitude MJ and our classified spectroscopic subtype, we derived the spectroscopic distance of M giants with uncertainties of about 40%. A catalog of 8639 M giants is provided. As an additional result of this analysis, we also present a catalog of 101 690 M dwarfs/subdwarfs which are processed by our classification pipeline.

Red clump stars from the LAMOST dataⅠ: identification and distance

We present a sample of about 120 000 red clump candidates selected from the LAMOST DR2 catalog based on the empirical distribution model in the effective temperature vs. surface gravity plane. Although, in general, red clump stars are considered as standard candles, they do not exactly stay in a narrow range of absolute magnitude, but may have a range of more than one magnitude depending on their initial mass. Consequently, conventional oversimplified distance estimations with the assumption of a fixed luminosity may lead to systematic bias related to the initial mass or age, which can potentially affect the study of the evolution of the Galaxy with red clump stars. We therefore employ an isochrone-based method to estimate the absolute magnitude of red clump stars from their observed surface gravities, effective temperatures and metallicities. We verify that the estimation removes the systematics well and provides initial mass/age estimates that are independent of distance with accuracy better than 10%.