LINE BROADENING IN FIELD METAL-POOR RED GIANT AND RED HORIZONTAL BRANCH STARS

We report 349 radial velocities for 45 metal-poor field red giant branch (RGB) and red horizontal branch (RHB) stars, with time coverage ranging from 1 to 21 years. We have identified one new spectroscopic binary, HD 4306, and one possible such system, HD 184711. We also provide 57 radial velocities for 11 of the 91 stars reported in our previous work. All but one of the 11 stars had been found to have variable radial velocities. New velocities for the long-period spectroscopic binaries BD−1 2582 and HD 108317 have extended the time coverage to 21.7 and 12.5 years, respectively, but in neither case have we yet completed a full orbital period. As was found in the previous study, radial velocity “jitter” is present in many of the most luminous stars. Excluding stars showing spectroscopic binary orbital motion, all 7 of the red giants with estimated MV values more luminous than −2.0 display jitter, as well as 3 of the 14 stars with −2.0 < MV ⩽ −1.4. We have also measured the line broadening in all the new spectra, using synthetic spectra as templates. Comparison with results from high-resolution and higher signal-to-noise (S/N) spectra employed by other workers shows good agreement down to line-broadening levels of 3 km s−1, well below our instrumental resolution of 8.5 km s−1. As the previous work demonstrated, the majority of the most luminous red giants show significant line broadening, as do many of the red horizontal branch stars, and we briefly discuss possible causes. The line broadening appears related to velocity jitter, in that both appear primarily among the highest luminosity red giants.