The GALAH+ Survey: A New Library of Observed Stellar Spectra Improves Radial Velocities and Reveals Motions within M67

Tomaž Zwitter, Janez Kos, Sven Buder, Klemen Čotar, Martin Asplund, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Andrew R. Casey, Gayandhi M. De Silva, Valentina D'Orazi, Kenneth C. Freeman, Michael R. Hayden, Geraint F. Lewis, Jane Lin, Karin Lind, Sarah L. Martell, Katharine J. Schlesinger, Sanjib Sharma, Jeffrey D. Simpson, Dennis Stello, Daniel B. Zucker, Kevin-Luke Beeson, Richard de Grijs, Thomas Nordlander, Gregor Traven, Fred Watson, Rob Wittenmyer

Published 2020-12-22Version 1

GALAH+ is a magnitude-limited survey of high resolution stellar spectra obtained by the HERMES spectrograph at the Australian Astronomical Observatory. Its third data release provides reduced spectra with new derivations of stellar parameters and abundances of 30 chemical elements for 584,015 dwarfs and giants, 88% of them in the Gaia magnitude range 11 < G < 14. Here we use these improved values of stellar parameters to build a library of observed spectra which is useful to study variations of individual spectral lines with stellar parameters. This and other improvements are used to derive radial velocities with uncertainties which are generally within 0.1 km s-1 or ~25% smaller than in the previous release. The median difference to radial velocities from Gaia DR2 for the 225,082 spectra of matching objects equals +0.009 km s-1 for dwarfs and -0.122 km s-1 for giants. We identify 4483 stars with intrinsically variable velocities and 225 stars for which the velocity stays constant over >=3 visits spanning more than a year. The combination of radial velocities from GALAH+ with distances and sky plane motions from Gaia enables studies of dynamics within streams and clusters. For example, we show that the open cluster M67 contracts at a rate of ~0.36 km s-1. Such a breathing motion is likely a consequence of a perturbation during the cluster's last passage through the Galactic disc ~40 Myr ago.