%0 Journal Article
%T The Data Reduction Pipeline for the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
%A David L. Nidever
%A Jon A. Holtzman
%A Carlos Allende Prieto
%A Stephane Beland
%A Chad Bender
%A Dmitry Bizyaev
%A Adam Burton
%A Rohit Desphande
%A Scott W. Fleming
%A Ana Elia Garcia Perez
%A Fred R. Hearty
%A Steven R. Majewski
%A Szabolcs Meszaros
%A Demitri Muna
%A Duy Nguyen
%A Ricardo P. Schiavon
%A Matthew Shetrone
%A Michael F. Skrutskie
%A Jennifer S. Sobeck
%A John C. Wilson
%J Physics
%D 2015
%I arXiv
%R 10.1088/0004-6256/150/6/173
%X The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III, explores the stellar populations of the Milky Way using the Sloan 2.5-m telescope linked to a high resolution (R~22,500), near-infrared (1.51-1.70 microns) spectrograph with 300 optical fibers. For over 150,000 predominantly red giant branch stars that APOGEE targeted across the Galactic bulge, disks and halo, the collected high S/N (>100 per half-resolution element) spectra provide accurate (~0.1 km/s) radial velocities, stellar atmospheric parameters, and precise (~0.1 dex) chemical abundances for about 15 chemical species. Here we describe the basic APOGEE data reduction software that reduces multiple 3D raw data cubes into calibrated, well-sampled, combined 1D spectra, as implemented for the SDSS-III/APOGEE data releases (DR10, DR11 and DR12). The processing of the near-IR spectral data of APOGEE presents some challenges for reduction, including automated sky subtraction and telluric correction over a 3 degree diameter field and the combination of spectrally dithered spectra. We also discuss areas for future improvement.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.03742v2