Extending the Tillinghast Reflector Echelle Spectrograph (TRES) Pipeline and Analysis Tools

Abstract

This thesis further develops a suite of tools designed for calculating stellar parameters and measuring radial velocities using spectra obtained with the Tillinghast Reflector Echelle Spectrograph (TRES). The standard pipeline was designed for solar-like stars and produces a quick-look summary of stellar parameters and radial velocities. Tools external to the current pipeline have recently been developed to work with hotter or cooler stars. Integrating these tools in the current pipeline extends the capabilities of the pipeline by providing users with the most accurate and precise radial velocities and stellar parameters available for a wider range of stars. A quality flag parameter has been implemented in the stellar parameter classification code to determine the quality of results based on the known capabilities of the classification code. Radial velocities have been corrected to an absolute scale by closely monitoring and correcting for changes in nightly observations of non-variable standard star radial velocities. An additional correction is made by monitoring reflected sunlight using asteroids and daytime sky observations. A complete analysis of all TRES TESS observations have been processed to derive stellar parameters and those parameters have been uploaded and shared with a broad community of users via an exoplanet community repository called ExoFOP. A new TRES instrument front end was installed during this work. The pipeline was edited to accommodate the new changes and additional testing was done to ensure that the pipeline was producing correct results. Finally, as a step to allow ease of use of all the available tools, a TRES Pipeline Results and Analysis Guide was written to give new users a resource to use as they get started working with TRES data.