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# Stellar parameters from very low resolution spectra and medium band filters

## 1 Background and Objectives

An understanding of the origin, properties and evolution of our Galaxy requires a careful census of its constituents, in particular its stellar members. Of special importance are the intrinsic physical properties of these stars. The fundamental properties are mass, age and abundances, as these determine a star’s history and future development. However, ages are not observable, and masses can only be directly obtained from some multiple systems. Thus we must indirectly gain this information via the stellar spectrum, and a number of atmospheric parameters have been defined for this purpose. The main ones are the effective temperature, $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, the surface gravity, $`\mathrm{log}g`$, and the metallicity, \[M/H\]. To these can also be added the alpha abundances, {$`\alpha _i`$} (which measure the devations away from the ‘standard’ abundance ratios), the photospheric microturbulence velocity, $`V_{\mathrm{micro}}`$, and the extinction by the interstellar medium, A($`\lambda )`$(although not intrinsic to the star, it is necessary for determining its luminosity). Masses and ages can then be determined from stellar structure and evolution models and with calibration via binary systems. It is important to realise that this modelling is complex, and a number of assumptions have to be made. There is, therefore, a limit to the precision with which we can determine physical properties.

Historically, spectroscopic parameters have been measured indirectly through the MK classification system (Morgan et al. morgan\_43a (1943)) or via colour-magnitude and colour-colour diagrams. In the MK system, the two parameters spectral type and luminosity class act as proxies for $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`\mathrm{log}g`$. Originally a qualitative system relying on a visual match between observed spectra and a system of standards, much progress has been made in quantifying it with automated techniques (e.g. Weaver & Torres-Dodgen weaver\_97a (1997); Bailer-Jones et al. bailerjones\_98a (1998)). The most commonly used classification techniques have been neural networks and $`\chi ^2`$ matching to templates (or more generally, minimum distance methods). A summary of recent progress in this area is given by von Hippel & Bailer-Jones (vonhippel\_00a (2000)).

Despite this focus on the MK system, it is not well suited to classifying data from the deep surveys which will be central to the future development of Galactic astrophysics. This is for a number of reasons, but in particular because it lacks a measure of metallicity. Although MK does make allowance for various ‘peculiar’ stars, these are defined as exceptions, and the notation is not suited to a statistical, quantifiable analysis. This is problematic given the significance of metal poor halo stars in a deep survey. There is also now no good reason why we should not determine physical parameters directly from the observational data.

Some attempts have been made to determine the physical parameters of real spectra directly by training neural networks on synthetic spectra. Gulati et al. (gulati\_97a (1997)) used this approach to determine the effective temperatures of ten solar metallicity G and K dwarfs. Taking the “true” effective temperature of these stars as those given by Gray & Corbally gray\_94a (1994), they found a mean “error” in the network-assigned temperatures of 125 K. Bailer-Jones et al. (bailerjones\_97a (1997)) determined $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ for over 5000 dwarfs and giants in the range B5–K5, and also showed evidence of sensitivity of the parametrization models to metallicity.

The accuracy with which physical parameters can be determined from a stellar spectrum depends upon, amongst other things, the wavelength coverage, spectral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). From the point of view of designing a stellar survey project it is essential to know how well the stellar parameters can be determined for a given set of these observational parameters. Moreover, given that there is always a limit to the collecting area and integration time available, there is always a trade-off between spectral resolution, sensitivity and sky coverage.

The goal of this paper is to determine the accuracy with which physical stellar parameters can be determined from spectroscopic data at a range of SNRs and resolutions which could realistically be achieved in a deep survey mission. This specification rules out high resolution spectra. The parametrization work has been carried out using neural networks (Sect. 3) because they have been shown to be one of the best approaches for this kind of work. This is not to presuppose, however, that some other approach may not ultimately be better. The simulations have been made using a large database of synthetic spectra generated from Kurucz atmospheric models (Sect. 4). While these spectra do not show the full range of variation in real stellar spectra, they are adequate for a realistic demonstration of what is possible as a function of SNR and resolution. The results are presented in Sect. 5 and summarised and discussed in Sect. 6. Finally, the requirements for a complete survey-oriented classification system are given in Sect. 7.

## 2 The GAIA Galactic Survey Mission

The simulations in this paper were partially inspired by the need to produce an optimal photometric/spectroscopic system for the GAIA Galactic survey mission. GAIA is a candidate for the ESA cornerstone 5 mission for launch in 2009 (ESA, in preparation). It is primarily an astrometric mission with a precision of a few microarcseconds, and will survey the entire sky down to V=20, thus observing c. 109 stars in our Galaxy. Radial velocities will be obtained on board down to V=17.5, thus providing a 6D phase space survey (three spatial and three velocity co-ordinates) for stars brighter than this limit. A survey of this size will have a profound impact on Galactic astrophysics, but to achieve this it is essential that the physical characteristics of the target objects are measured and correlated with their spatial and kinematic properties. As GAIA is a continuously scanning satellite, a fixed total amount of integration time is available for each object, so there is a trade-off between resolution, signal-to-noise ratio and wavelength coverage. For various reasons, the current GAIA design does not include a spectrograph (other than a 1.5 Å resolution region between 8470 and 8700 Å intended for radial velocity measurements), but instead will image all objects in several medium and broad band filters (Table 1). Three filter systems are shown: the system nominally selected for the mission plus two alternatives. The profiles of the two alternatives are represented as Gaussians in this paper. The ability of these filter system to determine stellar parameters will be compared with that for spectra of various resolutions.

## 3 The network model

A neural network is an algorithm which performs a non-linear parametrized mapping between an input vector, $`𝐱`$, and an output vector, $`𝐲`$. (The term ‘neural’ is misleading: although originally developed to be very simplified models of brain function, many neural networks have nothing to do with brain research and are better described in purely mathematical terms.) The network used in this paper is a feedforward multilayer perceptron with two ‘hidden layers’. These hidden layers form non-linear combinations of their inputs. The output from the first hidden layer is the vector $`𝐩`$, the elements of which are given by

$$p_j=\mathrm{tanh}\left(\underset{i}{}w_{i,j}x_i\right)$$

These values are then passed through a second hidden layer which performs a similar mapping, the output from that layer being the vector $`𝐪`$

$$q_k=\mathrm{tanh}\left(\underset{j}{}w_{j,k}p_j\right)$$

The output from the network, $`𝐲`$, is then the weighted sum of these

$$y_l=\underset{k}{}w_{k,l}q_k$$

The $`\mathrm{tanh}`$ function provides the non-linear capability of the network, and the weights, $`𝐰`$, are its free parameters. The model is supervised, which means that in order for it to give the required input–output mapping it must be trained on a set of representative data patterns. These are inputs (stellar spectra) for which the true target outputs (stellar parameters) are known. The training is a numerical least-squares minimisation: Starting with random values for the weights, a set of spectra are fed through the network and the error in the actual outputs with respect to the desired (target) outputs calculated. The gradient of this error with respect to each of the N weights is then used to iteratively perturb the weights towards a minimum of the error function. Thus the training is a minimisation problem in an N-dimensional space, and the resulting input–output mapping can be regarded as a non-linear interpolation of the training data. Once the network has been trained the weights are fixed and the network used to obtain physical stellar parameters for new spectra.

The results in this paper use a network code written by the author consisting of five and ten hidden nodes in the first and second hidden layers respectively. The complexity of the network is determined by the number of hidden nodes and layers. While networks with a single hidden layer can provide non-linear mappings, experience has shown that a second hidden layer can lead to considerable improvement in performance (Bailer-Jones et al. bailerjones\_98a (1998)). This has been confirmed with the data in this paper. Significant further improvement is not expected through the addition of more hidden nodes/layers. The network has three outputs, one for each of the parameters $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, $`\mathrm{log}g`$ and \[M/H\]. The error which is minimised is the commonly-used sum-of-squares error (the sum being over all training patterns and outputs), except that the error contribution from each output is weighted by a factor related to the precision with which that parameter can be determined.

I stress that a neural network is not fundamentally different from many other parameter fitting algorithms. Its strengths are that it has a fast and straight-forward training algorithm, can map arbitrarily complex functions (given sufficient data to determine the function), and can be parallelised in software or hardware to achieve considerable increases in speed. One of the common criticisms of neural networks is that it is difficult to interpret their weights and get an idea of exactly how they achieve their results. While this is essentially true, part of this difficulty stems from the fact that the models are problem-independent: they are purely mathematical models that do not explicitly take into account the physics of the problem. Moreover, in order to fully understand the model it would be necessary to simplify it, and this in turn would reduce its performance. This “interpretability–complexity” trade-off is inherent to almost any type of heuristic model.

## 4 Synthetic spectra

A large grid of synthetic spectra have been generated using Kurucz atmospheric models (Kurucz kurucz\_92a (1992)) and the synthetic spectral generation program of Gray (Gray & Corbally gray\_94a (1994)). The parameter grid consists of 36 $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ values between 4000 K and 30 000 K (step sizes between 250 K and 5000 K), 7 values of $`\mathrm{log}g`$ between 2.0 and 5.0 dex (in 0.5 steps) and 15 values of \[M/H\] between $``$3.0 and $`+`$1.0 dex (step sizes between 0.1 and 0.5). The microturbulence velocity was fixed at 2.0 kms-1. This yielded an (almost complete) grid of 3537 atmospheric models. Contiguous spectra were calculated between 3000 and 10 000 Å in 0.05 Å steps with a line list of over 900 000 atomic and molecular lines. The resolution, $`r`$, of these spectra was then degraded to 25, 50, 100, 200 and 400 Å FWHM by Gaussian convolution. (Each resolution element is sampled by two pixels, so these resolutions correspond to 560, 280, 140, 70 and 35 inputs to the network respectively.) These resolutions are considerably lower then the 1–5 Å generally used for MK classification. The spectra were also combined with the transmission curves of the filters (Table 1) to produce three sets of filter fluxes. Poisson noise was added to all data sets to simulate signal-to-noise ratios of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 1000 per resolution element. The result is 40 sets of 3537 absolute spectral energy distributions at each combination of resolution and SNR. The absolute flux information is retained.

It is noted that Kurucz models do not produce highly accurate spectra for all types of stars. This is particularly true at low $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ as they exclude water opacity (and there are no H2O lines in the line lists). For this reason spectra have not been calculated below 4000 K. Furthermore, the models lack chromospheres and so do not reproduce features such as emission in the cores of the CaII H & K absorption lines. For the present investigation, however, it is not necessary to have highly accurate individual spectra, but spectra which reflect differences of the appropriate scale and complexity.

## 5 Spectral parametrization results

As the neural network is a parameter fitting algorithm, it is essential that its performance is evaluated on an independent set of data from that on which it is trained. For this purpose, each of the 40 data sets was randomly split into two halves and one used for training (1760 spectra) and the other for testing (1759 spectra). $`\mathrm{log}_{10}`$$`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ (rather than $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$) is used as a target in the networks to reduce the dynamic range of this parameter and give a better representation of the uncertainties. The input and output parameters are scaled to have zero mean and unit standard deviation to prevent ‘saturation’ of the network during training.

For each data set a committee of three identical networks was trained from different initial random weights. The resultant parameter for any star is then the average from the three networks. This helps to reduce the effects of imperfect training convergence. Each network was trained with a conjugate gradient algorithm for 10 000 iterations and used weight decay regularisation to avoid overtraining. More training did not reduce the error further. The longest training time (for the largest input vector) was about one day on a Sun SPARC Enterprise (no parallelisation of the code). The time to parametrize was of order $`10^3`$ seconds per spectrum.

The precision to which physical parameters can be determined from a stellar spectrum depends not only on the SNR and resolution, but also on the type of star. For example, it is more difficult to determine the metallicity of hot stars on account of the almost complete absence of metal lines. Therefore, I summarise the performance of each data set for three different temperature ranges (for all $`\mathrm{log}g`$ and \[M/H\]):

1. $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $`<`$ 5800 K (stars later than solar – 408 spectra in the test subset)
2. 5800 $`<`$ $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $`<`$ 10 000 (A and F stars – 888 spectra in the test subset)
3. $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $`>`$ 10 000 K (O and B stars – 463 spectra in the test subset)

The error measure I used is the average absolute error, $`ϵ`$, of each parameter, i.e. the absolute difference between the network output and the target value averaged over all stars in the test subset for that temperature range. This error is more robust than the often-used RMS error because it is less distorted by outliers and more characteristic of the majority of the error distribution. For a Gaussian distribution $`1\sigma =1.25ϵ`$, although some of the error distributions deviate significantly from Gaussian.

The results of the parametrization process are shown in Figs 13 and tabulated in Tables 24. Before interpreting these results we should consider the limits which the data themselves place on the performance. First, the network will be unable to produce errors smaller than the smallest variations in the data set. If, to take a hypothetical example, the spectra did not change as the metallicity changed by 1.0 dex, we could not expect the network to determine \[M/H\] to much better than 0.5 dex. Second, the grid of atmospheric models represents the physical parameters at a finite sampling, e.g. a constant step size of 0.5 dex for $`\mathrm{log}g`$. This sampling does not in itself limit the precision achievable; it is perfectly possible for the network to legitimately give an error much smaller than the sampling because the network is minimising a continuous error function and not just obtaining the best match between a spectrum and a set of templates. Nonetheless, the network input–output mapping is an interpolation of the training data, and the more coarsely sampled the parameter grid the harder it is for the network to get a reliable interpolation. Consequently, while the network may be able to achieve sub-sampling accuracy, we should not be surprised if it cannot. Thus to avoid over-interpreting these results we should not compare two errors which are both smaller than half the sampling level. The average ‘half-sampling’ values for \[M/H\] and $`\mathrm{log}g`$ are 0.2 and 0.25 respectively, and for log $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ in the three temperature ranges (cool, intermediate and hot) are 0.01, 0.01 and 0.03 respectively. The implication is that, if the network produces errors smaller than these half-sampling values (as it does), we cannot know whether the performance is limited by the network model or by the data themselves. A distinction will only be possible with a more sensitive and finely sampled grid of atmospheric models.

With the above caveat taken into account, I draw attention to some interesting features in Figs 13.

1. Good $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ determination is possible with all resolutions/filter systems and SNRs. The larger error in $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ above 10 000 K may be an artifact of the larger half-sampling value in this region ($``$1000 K).
2. Only at high resolution can $`\mathrm{log}g`$ be determined for the coolest stars and even then the determination is poor relative to the hotter stars. This is understandable, at least in part, because the $`\mathrm{log}g`$ spectral signature is primarily in the line widths which are only apparent at high resolution.
3. Although the three filter systems differ somewhat, they give essentially the same performance as each other.
4. The filter systems (each with 10–15 input parameters) have similar $`\mathrm{log}g`$ and $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ as the $`r`$=400 Å spectra (35 inputs).
5. At low SNR, the $`r`$=400 Å spectra and the filters give poor \[M/H\] and very poor $`\mathrm{log}g`$ determination for all three temperature ranges.
6. At high SNR (1000) all resolutions/filter systems appear to be equally good at determining any of the parameters. Differences will probably become apparent with a more sensitive training grid.
7. At higher temperatures the accuracy is more sensitive to SNR than at lower temperatures.
8. Metallicity determination is more difficult at higher temperatures, especially for the filters and low resolution spectra. This is understandable as at high temperature there are fewer and weaker metal lines which are only significant at high SNR and/or resolution.
9. In most cases there is little difference between the performances of the $`r`$=25, 50 and 100 Å spectra, at least for this data grid.

## 6 Summary and Discussion

The results demonstrate that a fully automated neural network can accurately determine the three principal physical parameters from spectroscopic or photometric stellar data, something which has not previously been demonstrated. Moreover, this work has used spectra of considerably lower resolution than have been used before in automated classifiers. Even at low resolution (50–100 Å FWHM) and SNR (5–10 per resolution element), neural networks can yield good determinations of $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and \[M/H\], and even for $`\mathrm{log}g`$ for stars earlier than solar. Still lower resolutions permit good results provided the SNR is high enough ($`50`$). That good $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ can be achieved even at low resolution and SNR is perhaps not surprising when we consider that the spectra have absolute fluxes, which will be the case with high precision parallax missions such as GAIA. However, the more distant objects will have lower precision parallaxes and hence errors in the mean flux level. But even if we completely ignore distance information (and flux normalise the spectra), the shape of the spectrum is still a strong indicator of $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$: For example, Bailer-Jones et al. (bailerjones\_98a (1998)) obtained an MK spectral type precision of 0.8 subtypes ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}`$$`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$=0.010–0.015) across a wide range of spectral types (B2–M7) using flux normalised spectra. This is similar to what can be achieved from broad band photometry, implying that $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ determination only requires very low resolution.

The good performance of ‘high’ resolution spectroscopy (25 Å) at very low SNR ($`\sqrt{5}`$ per pixel) was not expected. It seems to imply that for a given amount of integration time it may be better to sacrifice SNR for resolution. It is noteworthy that while the filters provide good $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, their ability to determine \[M/H\] and especially $`\mathrm{log}g`$ is very limited at low SNR.

How do these results compare with classical parametrization methods? Gray (gray\_92a (1992)) compiles results showing that with photometric errors below 0.01 magnitudes, the B$``$V colour calibrates $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ to 2–3% (4% for hotter stars) in the absence of reddening. Slightly better precision can be obtained from the slope of the Paschen continuum and size of the Balmer discontinuity. The latter may also be used to measure $`\mathrm{log}g`$ to $`\pm 0.2`$ dex. With spectra at a few Å resolution over a similar wavelength range to that used here, Cacciari et al. (cacciari\_87a (1987)) obtained uncertainties in log $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`\mathrm{log}g`$ of 0.01 and 0.04 respectively. Sinnerstad (sinnerstad\_80a (1980)) made uvby,$`\beta `$ photometric measurements of B stars, and for uncertainties of 0.005 in $`\beta `$ and of 0.01 in u$``$b (i.e. SNR $``$ 200), infers errors in log $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`\mathrm{log}g`$ of 0.004 and 0.08 respectively. These are similar to or slightly better than the results for similar stars in Tables 24 ($`ϵ_3`$) at the highest resolutions. High resolution ($`r0.1`$ Å) spectra have generally been used to determine metallicity, and in a review, Cayrel de Strobel (cayreldestrobel\_85a (1985)) notes that metallicity can be determined to $`\pm 0.07`$ dex at SNR=250 (but only $`\pm 0.2`$ dex at SNR=50) provided the effective temperature and gravity are approximately known. At lower SNR (10–20), Jones et al. (jones\_96a (1996)) could determine \[Fe/H\] to $`\pm 0.2`$ dex for G stars using a set of spectroscopic indices measured at 1 Å resolution in the range 4000–5000 Å, again using a known effective temperature.

More recently, Katz et al. (katz\_98a (1998)) have used a minimum distance method to parametrize spectra by finding the closest matching template spectrum. The template grid consisted of 211 flux calibrated spectra (3900–6800 Å, $`r0.1`$ Å) with 4000 K $``$$`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$$``$ 6300 K, $`0.29`$ \[Fe/H\] $`+0.35`$, and $`\mathrm{log}g`$ for dwarfs and giants. The internal accuracy of the method for log $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, $`\mathrm{log}g`$ and \[M/H\] was 0.008, 0.28 dex, and 0.16 dex respectively at SNR=100, and 0.009, 0.29 dex and 0.17 dex at SNR=10. As expected, their results for $`\mathrm{log}g`$ are much better than those in this paper at the similar temperature range ($`ϵ_1`$ in Table 3), presumably due to their much higher resolution. In contrast, their performance for \[M/H\] is similar and for $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ somewhat worse than that in this paper at 500 times lower resolution. Their results also confirm that at high resolution a lower SNR leads to very little loss in performance. Snider et al. (snider\_00a (2000)) trained and tested neural networks on a set of 182 real F,G and K spectra over the range 3630–4890 Å at intermediate resolution ($``$1Å), and achieved 1$`\sigma `$ errors in log $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, $`\mathrm{log}g`$ and \[M/H\] of 0.015, 0.41 dex and 0.22 dex respectively, based on training and testing a network with a set of 182 real F,G and K spectra.

When judging the relative values of the different resolution/SNR combinations in this paper, we must also take account of their implementation ‘costs’, specifically the relative integration times required. Usually for a survey, a fixed total amount of integration time is available for all filters/spectra. In the case of GAIA – which is continuously rotating – a star moves across a focal plane covered with a mosaic of CCDs which are clocked at the rotation rate. The different filters are fixed to different CCDs, so that as a star moves across the mosaic it is recorded in different wavelength ranges. Thus less numerous and/or broader filters would achieve a higher SNR than more or narrower filters. Some filters could be replaced with a slitless spectrograph (e.g. a prism or grism). This disperses every point on the sky and thus gives the full integration time for all wavelengths, but at the expense of increased sky noise and object confusion. These could be reduced by using one or more dichroics to redirect the light to two or more focal planes. (Confusion would be reduced further with GAIA by the fact that each area of sky is observed at many different position angles over the mission life.) An alternative approach is a set of many medium band filters ($`100`$ for $`r`$=100 Å over the complete wavelength range, although omission of some filters could be achieved). While this avoids the two principal disadvantages of the slitless spectrograph, the integration time per wavelength interval is dramatically reduced.

## 7 Development of a survey parametrization system

The development of a complete parametrization system will require further research, much of which needs to be directed at taking better account of the true nature of the observational data. Directions and suggestions for the course of this work are now given.

### 7.1 Object selection

Essentially all of the work in the literature on automated classification deals with preselected objects. In contrast, an unpointed survey will pick up a whole range of objects, necessitating a filtering system to select the stars. Such a system could make use of both object morphology and spectral features, and systems based on neural networks (e.g. Odewahn et al. odewahn\_93a (1993); Miller & Coe miller\_96a (1996); Serra-Ricart et al. serraricart\_96a (1996)) and Principal Components Analysis (Bailer-Jones et al. bailerjones\_98a (1998)) have been proposed. Such a system must be relatively robust and always allow for ‘unknown’ objects which can be dealt with manually.

### 7.2 Model training

It will be necessary to have a stellar database for training which takes better account of the larger range of variation present in the Galactic stellar population. Ideally, a large set of real spectra across a wide range of physical parameters should be obtained for this purpose. Good atmospheric models and synthetic spectra are nonetheless still required for determining their physical parameters and thus for training the network. There are two possible approaches to training. The first is to train on synthetic spectra suitably preprocessed to be in the same form as the observed spectra (e.g. Bailer-Jones et al. bailerjones\_97a (1997)). The alternative is to obtain a representative sample of real spectra with the survey system, calibrate them, and then use them to train a network. In theory the latter method gives a better sampling of the true cosmic variance in the spectra, but of course requires that a representative sample is selected from the survey data. This sample could be improved as the survey progressed. Neural networks are fast to train and apply, so it is realistic to expect that even for a database of $`10^9`$ objects the network could be retrained and applied to the whole database in less than a day.

### 7.3 Improved stellar models

More advanced model atmospheres are required for a number of reasons:

1. $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, \[M/H\] and $`\mathrm{log}g`$ do not uniquely describe a true spectrum. Models sensitive to different abundance ratios and which include chromospheres (for example) are necessary.
2. Kurucz models assume LTE which is known to break down in a number of regimes (e.g. for very hot stars).
3. Both the atmospheric models and the line lists lack water opacity, known to be important for cool stars, thus setting the current lower $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ limit of about 4000 K.
4. Yet more advanced models (which include dust) are required for very cool stars (L and T dwarfs) and brown dwarfs, of which many will be found by GAIA.

### 7.4 Reddening

Of particular importance is insterstellar extinction (reddening), especially in deep surveys. The extinction can, in theory, be determined by the network by training it on artificially reddened synthetic spectra and providing the network with a “reddening” output parameter (or parameters). This has been demonstrated on limited data sets by Weaver & Torres-Dodgen weaver\_95a (1995) and Gulati, Gupta & Singh gulati\_97a (1997), who determined E(B$``$V) to within 0.05 and 0.08 magnitudes respectively. The latter made use of 6 Å resolution UV spectra (4850–5380 Å). The former used red spectra (5800–8900 Å) at 15 Å resolution and found that the spectral type and luminosity class classifications did not degrade much as reddening was added. It is therefore to be expected that the parametrizations in this paper will be robust to reddening, particularly as the spectra have a much larger wavelength coverage. The filter systems proposed for GAIA were of course designed with interstellar extinction in mind, and a study of its impact has been carried out (ESA, in preparation). This work shows that suitable Q parameters (non-linear combinations of the filter fluxes) used to determine the physical parameters are largely insensitive to reddening. It also claims that narrow band filters are not necessary for overcoming reddening. In some parts of the parameter space, reddening is more problematic (e.g. for K stars), largely due to a degeneracy between it and $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`\mathrm{log}g`$. However, at intermediate and high Galactic latitudes it is expected that E(B$``$V) can be determined to within 0.002 magnitudes. Munari (munari\_99a (1999)) similarly shows that reddening-free indices exist for the Asiago filter system. As a neural network also forms non-linear combinations of the filter fluxes, it is reasonable to suppose that it too will be robust to redenning, although this will be the subject of future work.

### 7.5 Binary systems

The parametrization model used in a real survey must confront the fact that most stars are in spatially unresolved multiple systems. Independent measurement of the physical properties of each component is desirable and in principle achievable – when the brightness ratio is large enough – by training the network with composite spectra. In this case the network model would need to have multiple sets of outputs to deal with each component. An alternative approach is to use ‘probabilistic outputs’ in which the single output for, say, $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, is replaced with a series of outputs in which each value of $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ (6000, 6250, 6500 etc.) is represented separately. The network then evaluates the probability that each temperature is present in the input spectrum. This method is not recommended, however, as it eliminates the intrinsically continuous nature of the physical parameters. It would also greatly increase the number of outputs and hence the number of free parameters (weights) in the network.

### 7.6 Incomplete data

Object confusion should not result in any overlapped spectrum being rejected entirely. Rather, it would be better to have a parametrization model which is robust to missing data. This is a major challenge for the feedforward network models used in this and most other papers on automated classification, and will presumably require some transformation of the input spectrum. An analysis of the effect of wavelength coverage on the parameter determination accuracy is important because a smaller spectral coverage (or coverages – it need not be contiguous) would also reduce this confusion.

Finally, the model should make use of all available data. In the case of GAIA, this means including the data from the high resolution spectrograph (8470–8700 Å at 0.75 Å$`/\mathrm{pix}^1`$) used to measure radial velocities. As the inputs to the network need not be homogenous, there should be no problem incorporating different types of data.

## Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Fabio Favata, Gerry Gilmore and Michael Perryman for useful discussions on this work, in particular within the context of the GAIA mission. I am also grateful to Robert Kurucz for use of his model atmospheres and compiled line lists, and to Richard Gray for the use of his synthetic spectra generation program.


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# Cosmological Surveys at Submillimetre Wavelengths

## 1. Evidence for Massive Star-Formation at High-Redshift

In addressing the question ‘what is the main epoch of metal production in the universe?’, or equivalently, ‘when did the cosmic star-formation rate reach its peak value?’, a number of separate lines of evidence suggest that a high-rate of star-formation ($`100M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$) must have occurred in massive systems at $`z3`$. This evidence includes (i) the demonstration by Renzini (1998), using clusters of galaxies as probes of the past star-formation and metal production history, that 30–50% of the present-day baryons are currently locked up in massive structures which appear to have formed at $`z>3`$; (ii) the peak in the co-moving number density of AGN (radio galaxies and quasars) at $`z2`$, AGN whose counterparts at low-redshift are hosted in luminous, massive elliptical galaxies ($`>2L^{}`$ \- Taylor et al. 1996, McClure et al. 1999). At $`z2`$ the universe is only 3–4 Gyrs old, which implies that a sustained star-formation rate (SFR) $`>200M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ is required to build a massive elliptical galaxy by $`z2`$ (assuming that galaxies hosting high-z AGN have already converted the major fraction of their mass into stars); (iii) the recent discovery of elliptical galaxies at $`z1.5`$ which contain stellar populations with ages of 3–4 Gyrs (Dunlop et al. 1996, Peacock et al. 1998). Regardless of the cosmological model this requires an extreme formation redshift ($`z>5`$) for the initial starburst in these galaxies; (iv) the dramatic increase in the number of star-forming galaxies at high-redshift identified in ground-based and HST faint galaxy samples. Using a Lyman-break colour selection technique (Steidel et al. 1996), more than 3000 galaxies now have photometric redshifts with $``$ 700 galaxies already spectroscopically confirmed at $`z2`$ (Adelberger priv.comm.), with SFRs $`15h^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. However the attenuating effects of dust, inevitably associated with star-formation, means that SFRs estimated from these rest-frame UV luminosities must be treated as strict lower-limits. Near-IR observations of rest-frame Balmer-line emission suggest an upward correction factor to the SFRs of $`215\times `$ (Pettini et al. 1998), whilst more robust measurements of SFRs, derived from rest-frame FIR luminosities, imply SFRs 600 times greater than that estimated from the UV luminosity (Hughes et al. 1998, Cimatti et al. 1998); (v) similar evolution seen in both the radio-source population and the local starburst population, implying that radio source evolution is a good tracer of the star-formation history of the Universe, suggests that the SFR density derived from Lyman-limit galaxies at $`z34`$ is under-estimated by a factor of $`5`$ (Dunlop 1998), and therefore that once again the star-formation activity in the Universe peaked at $`z>2`$; (vi) the small, but increasing number of submm continuum and CO detections of high-$`z`$ quasars and radio galaxies, indicate that the host galaxies of these powerful AGN contain large quantities of metal-enriched molecular gas ($`110\times 10^{10}M_{}`$, after correcting for gravitational amplification) which can fuel massive bursts of star-formation (Omont et al. 1996, Hughes et al. 1997, Combes et al. 1999).

Taken together, the observational evidence suggests that much of the on-going star-formation in the young Universe may be hidden by dust from optical surveys and possibly also from IR surveys. Hence the transparent view of the Universe provided by submm observations, which now have the instrumental sensitivity to detect high-$`z`$ dust-enshrouded galaxies forming stars at a rate $`>100M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, and the preliminary evidence that galaxies (particularly massive spheroidal systems) exhibit strong luminosity evolution at submm wavelengths, demonstrate that comprehensive submm surveys will provide an important alternative measurement of the star-formation history of high-$`z`$ galaxies unhindered by the effects of dust.

## 2. Submillimetre Cosmological Surveys

The star-formation history of the high-$`z`$ starburst galaxy population can be determined from an accurate measure of the integral submm source-counts, the luminosities and redshift distribution of the submm-selected galaxies. The contribution of the submm sources to the total FIR–mm background measured by COBE (Hauser et al. 1998, Fixen et al. 1998) places an additional strong constraint on the possible evolution. By designing a series of cosmological submm surveys, covering a sufficiently wide range of complementary depths and areas, it is possible to discriminate between competing models of galaxy evolution and the epochs of formation of massive galaxies.

The possibility of conducting cosmological surveys at submm wavelengths has been realised in the last few years with rapid technological advances in semiconductor materials, wafer fabrication, filter design and the temperature stability and performance of cryogenic systems operating at $`100400`$ mK. This has led to the development and successful commissioning of sensitive bolometer arrays (e.g. SCUBA, SHARC, MAMBO, BOLOCAM), all of which will be upgraded within the next few years. These cameras operate on largest telescopes (10-m CSO, 15-m JCMT, 30-m IRAM) and exploit the best ground-based mm and submm observing conditions.

Despite these recent advances in instrumental sensitivity the primary reason that submm observations of galaxies at cosmological redshifts are at all possible is illustrated in Fig 1. When attempting to observe galaxies out to extreme redshifts, observational cosmologists usually suffer the combined effect of cosmological dimming due to the vast distances, a steeply declining luminosity function and positive K-corrections. However the steep spectral index of the Rayleigh-Jeans emission from dust ($`\mathrm{S}_\nu \nu ^{2+\beta },\beta 1.5`$) heated by young massive stars or AGN, which radiates at 30–70 K and dominates the FIR-submm luminosity, produces a negative K-correction at submm and mm wavelengths of sufficient strength to completely compensate for cosmological dimming at redshifts $`z1`$ with the result that, in an Einstein-de Sitter universe, a dust-enshrouded starburst galaxy of a given luminosity should be as easy to detect at an extreme redshift $`z8`$ as at $`z1`$. Note that at millimetre wavelengths sources actually become brighter with increasing redshift. The situation is inevitably less favourable (by a factor of 2-3) for low values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, but nevertheless this relative “ease” of access to the very high-redshift universe remains unique to submm cosmology (Blain & Longair 1993, Blain & Longair 1996, Hughes & Dunlop 1998).

By early 2001, the initial extensive programme of extragalactic SCUBA (850 $`\mu `$m) surveys conducted on the 15-m JCMT will be completed, covering areas of 0.002–0.12 deg2 with respective $`3\sigma `$ depths in the range $`1.5\mathrm{mJy}<\mathrm{S}_{850\mu \mathrm{m}}<8\mathrm{mJy}`$. To ensure these submm data are fully exploited, the current SCUBA surveys have been restricted to fields extensively studied at other wavelengths and which contain deep X-ray, optical, IR and radio imaging data (e.g. Hubble Deep Field, Hawaii Deep Fields, low-$`z`$ lensing clusters, CFRS, Lockman Hole, ELAIS). The results from these first submm surveys (outlined below) confirm that an era of massive dust-enshrouded star-formation exists at early epochs ($`z>1`$), with an intensity previously underestimated at optical wavelengths (Smail et al. 1997, Hughes et al. 1998, Eales et al. 1999, Blain et al. 1999, Barger et al. 1999b). However despite the enhancement of observed sub-mm fluxes of high-$`z`$ starburst galaxies by factors of 3–10 at 850$`\mu `$m, the deepest SCUBA surveys todate are still only sensitive to high-$`z`$ galaxies with SFRs comparable to the most luminous local ULIRGs ($`100M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$).

The following preliminary results from the on-going SCUBA surveys have already made a significant impact on several cosmological questions.

* The faint submm source-counts at 850 $`\mu `$m are reasonably well determined between 1–10 mJy (e.g. Barger et al. 1999b) and significantly exceed a no-evolution model, requiring roughly $`(1+z)^3`$ luminosity evolution out to $`z12`$, however a variety of models are consisitent with the data. The submm background measured by COBE requires that the SCUBA source-counts must converge at $`S_{850\mu m}0.5`$ mJy.
* Submm sources generally appear to be associated with $`z>1`$ galaxies, although it not yet clear whether they necessarily have optical, IR and radio counterparts. There is still much debate about the fraction of submm sources at $`z2`$, and the fraction of submm-selected galaxies that contain an AGN. Currently the most accurate identifications and spectroscopic redshifts are found in the SCUBA survey of lensing clusters (Frayer et al. 1998, 1999, Ivison et al. 1998, Barger et al. 1999a).
* Approximately 30–50% of the submm background has been resolved into individual high-$`z`$ galaxies at flux densities $`S_{850\mu \mathrm{m}}>2`$ mJy, and therefore existing unlensed submm surveys, which are confusion-limited at about this flux level, are only within a factor $`4`$ in sensitivity of resolving the entire submm/FIR background. In the SCUBA surveys of highly-lensed clusters it is possible to measure the source-counts down to a reduced confusion limit of $`S_{850\mu \mathrm{m}}0.5\mathrm{mJy}`$ (Blain et al. 1998). It now appears that the majority of submm background is due to a population of high-$`z`$ ultraluminous ($`L_{\mathrm{FIR}}>10^{12}L_{}`$) dusty galaxies forming stars at rates $`>100M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, i.e. similar to the local ULIRG galaxies although the surface density of the high-$`z`$ submm population is significantly higher.
* At high-redshift ($`2<z<4`$) the submm surveys find $`5`$ times the star formation rate observed in the initial optical surveys (Madau 1997). However new optical surveys now agree more closely with the earlier submm result, finding no significant evidence for a decline in the star formation density between $`z=2`$ and $`z=4`$, when corrections are applied to the rest-frame UV luminosities to account for obscuration by dust (Pettini et al. 1998, Steidel et al. 1998).

## 3. Limitations on an Understanding of High-z Galaxy Evolution

Despite the success of the first SCUBA surveys, a number of deficiencies can be identified in the submm data which prevent a more accurate understanding of the star-formation history of high-$`z`$ galaxies. This review describes these deficiencies and outlines the future observations which will alleviate the following problems.

### 3.1. Constraining the evolutionary models

To improve the constraints on the competing evolutionary models provided by the current submm source-counts, it is necessary to (1) extend the restricted wavelength range of the surveys, (2) increase the dynamic range of the flux densities over which accurate source-counts are measured, and (3) increase the number of sources detected at a given flux level by surveying greater areas.

All these goals can be achieved by conducting future surveys with a combination of more sensitive, larger format bolometer arrays operating at 200$`\mu `$m – 3 mm on larger ground-based and airborne telescopes. Ground-based surveys at mm wavelengths can take advantage of a more stable and transparent atmosphere which will provide increased available integration time (to gain deeper survey sensitivity or greater survey area) and increased flux calibration accuracy. Future surveys with more sensitive and larger format arrays (e.g. BOLOCAM) will allow significantly greater areas to be covered (hence more sources detected) and will increase the range of the flux densities over which sources are detected. Furthermore conducting surveys with larger diameter telescopes (e.g. 50-m Large Millimetre Telescope (LMT/GTM), 100-m Green Bank Telescope) will reduce the beam-size, hence decrease the depth of the confusion limit (allowing deeper surveys) and improve the positional accuracy.

### 3.2. Future millimetre cosmological surveys

The SCUBA 850$`\mu `$m surveys have indicated that the extragalactic submillimetre background is dominated by a high-$`z`$ population of sources with $`S_{850\mu m}1`$ mJy. At $`z18`$ the same population of sources will have 1.1mm flux densities in the range $`0.30.6`$ mJy respectively. The extragalactic confusion limit at 850$`\mu `$m, estimated from the deepest SCUBA surveys, occurs at a depth of $`3\sigma <2\mathrm{m}\mathrm{J}\mathrm{y}`$ and corresponds to a source density N$`(S)4000\pm 1500\mathrm{deg}^2`$ at a resolution of 15 arcsecs. The ratio of 850$`\mu `$m (JCMT) and 1.1mm (LMT) beam-areas ($`6^{\prime \prime }`$) implies that confusion at 1.1 mm on the LMT will begin to become significant at a source density of $`24000\mathrm{deg}^2`$. Extrapolating models that adequately describe the measured 850$`\mu `$m source-counts to longer wavelengths suggests that at 1.1 mm confusion occurs at $`0.050.1`$ mJy. Consequently a deep 1.1 mm BOLOCAM/LMT survey has sufficient sensitivity and resolution to detect the entire submm-mm extragalactic background at a level above the confusion limit.

The current submm source-counts are measured with varying degrees of precision at 850$`\mu `$m between 1–10 mJy (Fig. 2,), whilst the future combination of BOLOCAM on the 10-m CSO (2000) and later ($`2002`$) on the 50-m LMT will provide accurate source counts at 1.1 mm between 0.1 and 100 mJy. Table 1 illustrates the predicted number of galaxies detected in a series of future 50-hour LMT surveys at 1.1 mm with BOLOCAM covering areas of 0.001–70 sq. degrees during the commissioning phase of the telescope and later, with an improved surface ($`\eta 70\mu `$m) during routine operation. For example in a similar duration to the original SCUBA HDF survey, a 50-hour LMT survey at 1.1 mm (with a $`3\sigma `$ detection limit of 2 mJy) will detect $`2000`$ galaxies equivalent to HDF850.1, the brightest submm source in the HDF ($`S_{850\mu \mathrm{m}}7`$ mJy).

### 3.3. Ambiguity in the counterparts & redshifts of submm galaxies

The current SCUBA surveys (with $`15^{\prime \prime }`$ resolution at 850$`\mu `$m) are struggling to unambiguously identify the submm sources with their optical/IR/radio counterparts. Hence the redshift distribution and luminosities of the submm sources are still uncertain. This results directly from the submm positional errors of $`23^{\prime \prime }`$ that are typical for even the highest S/N submm detections, and from the lack of submm data measuring the redshifted FIR spectral peak at 200–450 $`\mu `$m.

The positions of the brightest SCUBA sources ($`S_{850\mu m}>8`$ mJy) can be improved with mm-interferometric observations. However an IRAM Plateau de Bure follow-up of the brightest source in the Hubble Deep Field has demonstrated that even with $`2^{\prime \prime }`$ resolution and sub-arcsec positional errors, an ambiguous optical identification, and hence ambiguous redshift remains (Downes et al. 1999). It should be no surprise that submm selected galaxies, including those with mm-interferometric detections, do not always have optical counterparts, since high-$`z`$ galaxies observed in the earliest stages of formation may be heavily obscured by dust. Indeed this is the most compelling reason for conducting the submm surveys in the first instance and therefore searches for the counterparts may be more successful at near-infrared wavelengths. This was recently demonstrated by Smail et al. (1999) who took deep near-IR ($`2\mu `$m) images of two lensed clusters, previously observed by SCUBA (Smail et al. 1997). The original counterparts were identified as two bright low-redshift ($`z0.4`$) galaxies 5–10 arcsecs distant from the submm sources. However the new IR images revealed two high-$`z`$ ($`z>2`$) IR galaxies, with no optical counterparts, within 2-3 arcsecs of the SCUBA sources. The consequence of these mis-identifications is an inaccurate determination of star-formation history of high-$`z`$ galaxies.

The uncertainty in the redshift distribution of the submm-selected galaxies can be significantly reduced by measuring the mid-IR to radio SEDs of the individual sources. The power of using mid-IR to radio flux ratios (e.g. 15/850$`\mu `$m, 450/850$`\mu `$m, 850/1300$`\mu `$m, 850$`\mu `$m/1.4 GHz) as a crude measure of the redshift of submm-selected galaxies was demonstrated by Hughes et al. (1998) during the SCUBA survey of the Hubble Deep Field and has since been described elsewhere (e.g. Carilli & Yun 1999, Blain 1999). The overall similarity of the IR-radio SEDs of starburst galaxies, ULIRGS and radio-quiet AGN in the low-$`z`$ universe provides a useful template with which to compare the colours of high-$`z`$ submm population (particularly in the absence of information regarding the relative starburst/AGN contributions). Hence given sufficient instrumental sensitivity, the FIR–submm–radio colours of a submm source can discriminate between optical/IR counterparts which are equally probable on positional grounds alone, but which have significantly different redshifts, $`\delta z1.5`$ (Fig. 3).

This important technique, and the necessity for sensitive short submm data (200–500$`\mu `$m) measuring the rest-frame FIR SEDs of the individual high-z submm galaxies, without which it remains impossible to constrain their bolometric luminosities and SFRs, provide the major scientific justifications behind BLAST, a future ($`2003`$) NASA long-duration balloon-borne large-aperture submm telescope (P.I. M. Devlin, UPenn) operating at an altitude of 140,000 ft. Table 2 describes a series of possible BLAST surveys which demonstrate that even a single 50-hour survey will be able to follow-up all the wide-area shallow SCUBA surveys observed todate. For example if there are 5$`\sigma `$ SCUBA sources ($`S_{850\mu \mathrm{m}}>13`$ mJy) with no BLAST 5$`\sigma `$ counterparts at 300$`\mu `$m, i.e. $`S_{300\mu \mathrm{m}}<50`$ mJy, then the 300/850$`\mu `$m flux ratio must be $`4`$. This implies that the SCUBA source is most likely a galaxy at $`z3`$ for all typical starburst SEDs (Fig. 4). BLAST will also be an ideal complement to the future BOLOCAM bright mm-surveys ($`S_{1.1mm}>4\mathrm{m}\mathrm{J}\mathrm{y}`$) on the CSO and LMT. A measurement of the confusion noise due to extragalactic sources at 200–500$`\mu `$m with a $`2`$-m class telescope is an important secondary goal since the result will influence future FIRST survey strategies beyond 2007.

### 3.4. Millimetre CO-line spectroscopic redshifts

An accurate determination of the redshift distribution of submm-selected galaxies can ultimately be achieved through the measurement of mm-wavelength CO spectral-line redshifts, without recourse to having first identified the correct optical or IR counterparts. In the high-$`z`$ Universe the frequency separation of adjacent mm-wavelength CO transitions is $`\delta \nu _{\mathrm{J},\mathrm{J}1}115/(1+\mathrm{z})`$ GHz. Hence at redshifts $`>2`$, any adjacent pair of CO transitions are separated by $`<40`$ GHz, similar to the width of the 3 mm (75–110 GHz) atmospheric window. At these frequencies one can expect to detect the most luminous redshifted CO transitions from starbursts ($`J`$=6–5 $``$ $`J`$=3–2). Therefore, provided one can first pre-select from submm surveys those galaxies with sufficiently high (but still unknown) redshifts, using their FIR–mm colours, the availability of a “CO redshift machine” with a large instantaneous bandwidth ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu 35`$ GHz), operating on large single-dish mm-wavelength telescopes (e.g. 50-m LMT, 100-m GBT), will offer an incredibly powerful and more efficient alternative method to determine the accurate redshift distribution of the submm population.

Whilst future submm surveys will undoubtably detect increasing numbers of high-$`z`$ galaxies, an accurate description of their evolutionary history will not be possible without accurate redshifts and constraints on their bolometric luminosities (and star-formation rates). The overall strategy requires the follow-up of submm surveys with sensitive FIR–submm airborne (SOFIA), balloon-borne (BLAST) and satellite observations (SIRTF, FIRST), together with wide-band mm-wavelength spectroscopic measurements.

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