Identify ~20,000 Li-rich Giants in the LAMOST Low-Resolution Survey

Abstract

Li-rich giants serve as valuable tracers of stellar evolution and surface enrichment processes, for which a statistically large and homogeneous sample is crucial. Using the massive low-resolution ($R \sim 1800$) spectroscopic dataset from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) survey, we systematically search for Li-rich giants by determining their stellar lithium abundances through template matching of the Li I 6708 Å absorption line with a grid of synthetic spectra generated from ATLAS9 model atmospheres. The derived abundances are validated against previous high-resolution studies, showing good consistency with a mean absolute error of about 0.15 dex. Therefore, we adopt a threshold of $A(\rm{Li}) > 1.65$ dex to select Li-rich candidates, followed by visual inspection to ensure the reliability of each detection. Eventually, more than 20,000 Li-rich giants are identified, corresponding to approximately 2.5% of all giants in LAMOST DR9. We also investigate the occurrence rate of Li-rich giants in different evolutionary stages. This work presents a large and homogeneous catalog of Li-rich giants derived from the LAMOST low-resolution survey, which provides a reliable and valuable dataset for future studies of stellar evolution and lithium enrichment in evolved stars.

Figures (1)

• Figure 1: HR diagram of the initial giant sample, using stellar parameters from LASP, color-coded by number density.