Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 422, Issue 2, Pages 1489-1494Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.20722.x
Keywords
stars: abundances; stars: late-type; stars: statistics; Galaxy: abundances; Galaxy: evolution; Galaxy: stellar content
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Funding
- New York Community Trust
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Science Foundation
- US Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- Higher Education Funding Council for England
- American Museum of Natural History
- Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
- University of Basel
- University of Cambridge
- Case Western Reserve University
- University of Chicago
- Drexel University
- Fermilab
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Japan Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Korean Scientist Group
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA)
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA)
- New Mexico State University
- Ohio State University
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- United States Naval Observatory
- University of Washington
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We present evidence that there is an M dwarf problem similar to the previously identified G dwarf and K dwarf problems: the number of low-metallicity M dwarfs is not sufficient to match simple closed - box models of local Galactic chemical evolution. We estimated the metallicity of 4141 M dwarf stars with spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using a molecular band strength versus metallicity calibration developed using high resolution spectra of near by M dwarfs. Using a sample of M dwarfs with measured magnitudes, parallaxes and metallicities, we derived a relation that describes the absolute magnitude variation as a function of metallicity. When we examined the metallicity distribution of SDSS stars, after correcting for the different volumes sampled by the magnitude - limited survey, we found that there is an M dwarf problem, with the number of M dwarfs at [Fe/H] similar to -0.5 less than 1 per cent the number at [Fe/H] = 0, where a Simple model of Galactic chemical evolution predicts a more gradual drop in star numbers with decreasing metallicity.
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