Quality Control for Theoretical Data in the Virtual Observatory: Establishing Benchmark Tests for Synthetic Spectra

Abstract: The Virtual Observatory (VO) provides access to both, data and theory. Quality control is a general problem and the VO user needs partly some experience to judge the reliability of the VO products. As far as spectral analysis is concerned, many different areas are involved, from atomic data to stellar model-atmosphere codes. Within the framework of the German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (GAVO) project, the service TheoSSA is developed. It allows the VO user an easy access to synthetic spectral energy distributions (SEDs). We discuss quality control problems and the reliability of SEDs provided by TheoSSA.