A high-resolution stellar library for evolutionary population synthesis

We present a library of 1654 high-resolution stellar spectra, with a sampling of 0.3 angstrom and covering the wavelength range from 3000 to 7000 angstrom. The library was computed with the latest improvements in stellar atmospheres, incorporating non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) line-blanketed models for hot, massive (T-eff >= 27500 K) and line-blanketed models for cool (3000 <= T-eff <= 4500 K) stars. The total coverage of the grid is 3000 K <= T-eff <= 55000 K and -0.5 <= log g <= 5.5, for four chemical abundance values: twice solar, solar, half solar and 1/10 solar. Evolutionary synthesis models using this library are presented in a companion paper. We tested the general behaviour of the library by calculating and comparing equivalent widths of numerous H and He I lines, and some of the commonly used metallic indices. We also compared the library with the empirical libraries STELIB and Indo-US. The full set of the synthetic stellar spectra is available from our websites (http://www.iaa.csic.es/similar to rosa and http://www.astro.iag.usp.br/similar to lucimara/library.htm).