We have obtained 782 real spectra and used them as inputs for 6700 automatic cross-correlation runs to investigate the GAIA potential in terms of radial velocity accuracy. We have explored the dispersions 0.25, 0.5, 1 and 2 /pix over the 8490-8740 GAIA range. We have investigated late-F to early-M stars (constituting the vast majority of GAIA targets), slowly rotating (<Vrot sin i > = 4 km/s), of solar metallicity (<[Fe/H]> = -0.07) and not binary. The results are accurately described by the simple law: log = 0.6 (log S/N) 2 -2.4 log S/N + 1.75 log D + 3, where is the cross-correlation standard error (in km/s) and D is the spectral dispersion (in /pix). The spectral dispersion has turned out to be the dominant factor, with S/N being less important and the spectral mis-match being a weak player at the lowest S/N. Our results show that mission-averaged radial velocities of faint GAIA targets ( V ~ 15 mag) can match the ~0.5 km/s accuracy of tangential motions, provided the observations are performed at a dispersion not less than 0.5 /pix.
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Munari et al. (2001) studied this question.