Nearby Stars

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Sabine Reffert
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 541560339

The stars in the solar neighborhood, often defined as the volume out to 25 pc, are of special interest for rather diverse fields of study, such as Galactic structure, star formation, stellar multiplicity, stellar atmospheres, stellar structure and evolution, and exoplanets. The knowledge about the stellar content of the local volume has increased dramatically in the last years, mainly thanks to precise Gaia astrometry, but also due to several surveys in the infrared, adding many ultracool dwarfs to the tally. We propose to put together all this information, consolidate it and publish a new version of the 'Catalog of Nearby Stars' (CNS6), based on the recently published CNS5, new Gaia data, and a lot of relevant additional information. A curated catalog such as we propose is of much higher value than just a query of the Gaia data for the most nearby sources, since it consolidates all information, including that from other catalogs, provides more multiplicity information as well as homogeneous stellar parameters and well-defined completeness limits. The new 'Catalog of Nearby Stars' will allow for a multitude of new investigations, including studies of multiplicity and the mass and luminosity functions as well as of studies related to the structure of the Milky Way, and it can also serve as basis for the target selection for various missions such as direct imaging searches for exoplanets.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants