Featureless stars: Flux Calibration for Extremely Large Telescopes

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Cooke, Ryan, Suzuki, Nao, Prochaska, J. Xavier
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Cooke, Ryan
Suzuki, Nao
Prochaska, J. Xavier
author_facet Cooke, Ryan
Suzuki, Nao
Prochaska, J. Xavier
contents The spectrophotometric flux calibration of recent spectroscopic surveys has reached a limiting systematic precision of approximately 1-3 percent, and is often biased near the wavelengths associated with H I Balmer absorption. As we prepare for the next generation of imaging and spectroscopic surveys, and high-precision cosmology experiments, we must find a way to address this systematic. Towards this goal, we have identified a global network of 29 bright (G < 17.5) featureless white dwarf stars that have a spectral energy distribution consistent with an almost pure blackbody form over the entire optical and near-infrared wavelength range. Based on this sample, we have computed the systematic uncertainty and AB magnitude offsets associated with Gaia, SDSS, SMSS, PanSTARRS, DES, and 2MASS, and we have also checked the consistency of our objects with both GALEX and WISE. The magnitude range of the featureless stars reported here are ideally suited to observations taken with the forthcoming generation of extremely large telescopes, as well as calibrating the survey data acquired by the Rubin, Euclid and Roman observatories. Finally, all of the high-precision spectrophotometric standard stars reported here have been included in the latest release of the PypeIt data reduction pipeline.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_05343
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Featureless stars: Flux Calibration for Extremely Large Telescopes
Cooke, Ryan
Suzuki, Nao
Prochaska, J. Xavier
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
The spectrophotometric flux calibration of recent spectroscopic surveys has reached a limiting systematic precision of approximately 1-3 percent, and is often biased near the wavelengths associated with H I Balmer absorption. As we prepare for the next generation of imaging and spectroscopic surveys, and high-precision cosmology experiments, we must find a way to address this systematic. Towards this goal, we have identified a global network of 29 bright (G < 17.5) featureless white dwarf stars that have a spectral energy distribution consistent with an almost pure blackbody form over the entire optical and near-infrared wavelength range. Based on this sample, we have computed the systematic uncertainty and AB magnitude offsets associated with Gaia, SDSS, SMSS, PanSTARRS, DES, and 2MASS, and we have also checked the consistency of our objects with both GALEX and WISE. The magnitude range of the featureless stars reported here are ideally suited to observations taken with the forthcoming generation of extremely large telescopes, as well as calibrating the survey data acquired by the Rubin, Euclid and Roman observatories. Finally, all of the high-precision spectrophotometric standard stars reported here have been included in the latest release of the PypeIt data reduction pipeline.
title Featureless stars: Flux Calibration for Extremely Large Telescopes
topic Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05343