Effects of Gaussian smoothing on synthetic spectra

[andycasey]

When a spectrum is synthesised, it is synthesised at some spectral resolution.

At present the fitting profiles for atomic absorption lines apply the same Gaussian kernel width to the synthetic spectra as that for the absorption line we care about. But that means the absorption line we care about will always have a FWHM slightly lower than the synthesised spectrum because the synthesised profiles did have some intrinsic width prior to it being convolved.

So, the Gaussian kernel for smoothing should be slightly less than what is used for the atomic absorption line. The question is, how much?

[andycasey]

It turns out this is a dumb question.