- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/766/136
- Title:
- Stellar encounter rates in Galactic GCs
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/766/136
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The high stellar densities in the cores of globular clusters cause significant stellar interactions. These stellar interactions can produce close binary mass-transferring systems involving compact objects and their progeny, such as X-ray binaries and radio millisecond pulsars. Comparing the numbers of these systems and interaction rates in different clusters drives our understanding of how cluster parameters affect the production of close binaries. In this paper we estimate stellar encounter rates ({Gamma}) for 124 Galactic globular clusters based on observational data as opposed to the methods previously employed, which assumed "King-model" profiles for all clusters. By deprojecting cluster surface brightness profiles to estimate luminosity density profiles, we treat "King-model" and "core-collapsed" clusters in the same way. In addition, we use Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the effects of uncertainties in various observational parameters (distance, reddening, surface brightness) on {Gamma}, producing the first catalog of globular cluster stellar encounter rates with estimated errors. Comparing our results with published observations of likely products of stellar interactions (numbers of X-ray binaries, numbers of radio millisecond pulsars, and {gamma}-ray luminosity) we find both clear correlations and some differences with published results.
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Search Results
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/454/3267
- Title:
- Stellar encounters with long-period comets
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/454/3267
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The Solar system's Oort cloud can be perturbed by the Galactic tide and by individual passing stars. These perturbations can inject Oort cloud objects into the inner parts of the Solar system, where they may be observed as the long-period comets (periods longer than 200yr). Using dynamical simulations of the Oort cloud under the perturbing effects of the tide and 61 known stellar encounters, we investigate the link between long-period comets and encounters. We find that past encounters were responsible for injecting at least 5 percent of the currently known long-period comets. This is a lower limit due to the incompleteness of known encounters. Although the Galactic tide seems to play the dominant role in producing the observed long-period comets, the non-uniform longitude distribution of the cometary perihelia suggests the existence of strong - but as yet unidentified - stellar encounters or other impulses. The strongest individual future and past encounters are probably HIP 89825 (Gliese 710) and HIP 14473, which contribute at most 8 and 6 percent to the total flux of long-period comets, respectively. Our results show that the strength of an encounter can be approximated well by a simple proxy, which will be convenient for quickly identifying significant encounters in large data sets. Our analysis also indicates a smaller population of the Oort cloud than is usually assumed, which would bring the mass of the solar nebula into line with planet formation theories.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/557/A128
- Title:
- Stellar [Fe/H] and [Na/H] in NGC6752
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/557/A128
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present a new method to estimate the fraction of stars with chemical composition of first and second(s) generation(s) currently hosted in Galactic globular clusters (GCs). We compare cluster and field stars of similar metallicity in the [Fe/H]-[Na/H] plane. Since the phenomenon of multiple populations is only restricted to the cluster environment, the number of GC stars whose location coincides with that of field stars provides the fraction of first generation stars in that cluster. By exclusion, the fraction of second generation stars is derived. We assembled a dataset of 1891 field stars of the thin disk, thick disk, and halo of the Milky Way in the metallicity range -3.15<=[Fe/H]<=+0.48dex and with Na abundance from high resolution spectra. They are mostly dwarfs, but include also giants. Considering only the range in metallicity spanned by most GCs extensively studied for the Na-O anticorrelation (-2.36<=[Fe/H]<=-0.33dex), we have 804 stars. The total sample is homogeneized by offsets in [Fe/H] and [Na/H] with respect to a reference sample using the same line list and NLTE correction for Na adopted in a recent extensive survey of GC stars. This fully accounts for offsets among analyses due to different temperature scales, line lists, adopted (or neglected) corrections for departures from LTE. We illustrate our method estimating the fraction of first and second generation stars in the well studied GC NGC 6752. As a by-product, the comparison of [Na/H] values in GC and field stars suggests that at least two classes of old stellar systems probably contributed to the halo assembly: one group with characteristics similar to the currently existing GCs, and the other more similar to the present-day dwarf satellite galaxies.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/151/166
- Title:
- Stellar flares and variables from 2009-2010 CSTAR
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/151/166
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The Chinese Small Telescope Array (CSTAR) carried out high-cadence time-series observations of ~20.1 square degrees centered on the South Celestial Pole during the 2008, 2009, and 2010 winter seasons from Dome A in Antarctica. The nearly continuous six months of dark conditions during each observing season allowed for >10^6^ images to be collected through gri and clear filters, resulting in the detection of >10^4^ sources over the course of three years of operation. The nearly space-like conditions in the Antarctic plateau are an ideal testbed for the suitability of very small-aperture (<20cm) telescopes to detect transient events, variable stars, and stellar flares. We present the results of a robust search for such objects using difference image analysis of the data obtained during the 2009 and 2010 winter seasons. While no transients were found, we detected 29 flaring events and find a normalized flaring rate of 5+/-4*10^-7^flare/hr for late-K dwarfs, 1+/-1*10^-6^flare/hr for M dwarfs and 7+/-1*10^-7^flare/hr for all other stars in our sample. We suggest future small-aperture telescopes planned for deployment at Dome A would benefit from a tracking mechanism, to help alleviate effects from ghosting, and a finer pixel scale, to increase the telescope's sensitivity to faint objects. We find that the light curves of non-transient sources have excellent photometric qualities once corrected for systematics, and are limited only by photon noise and atmospheric scintillation.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/829/23
- Title:
- Stellar flares from Q0-Q17 Kepler LCs
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/829/23
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- A homogeneous search for stellar flares has been performed using every available Kepler light curve. An iterative light curve de-trending approach was used to filter out both astrophysical and systematic variability to detect flares. The flare recovery completeness has also been computed throughout each light curve using artificial flare injection tests, and the tools for this work have been made publicly available. The final sample contains 851168 candidate flare events recovered above the 68% completeness threshold, which were detected from 4041 stars, or 1.9% of the stars in the Kepler database. The average flare energy detected is ~10^35^erg. The net fraction of flare stars increases with g-i color, or decreasing stellar mass. For stars in this sample with previously measured rotation periods, the total relative flare luminosity is compared to the Rossby number. A tentative detection of flare activity saturation for low-mass stars with rapid rotation below a Rossby number of ~0.03 is found. A power-law decay in flare activity with Rossby number is found with a slope of -1, shallower than typical measurements for X-ray activity decay with Rossby number.
14736. Stellar groups in IC 2574
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/144/182
- Title:
- Stellar groups in IC 2574
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/144/182
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Dissolving stellar groups are very difficult to detect using traditional surface photometry techniques. We have developed a method to find and characterize non-compact stellar systems in galaxies where the young stellar population can be spatially resolved. By carrying out photometry on individual stars, we are able to separate the luminous blue stellar population from the star field background. The locations of these stars are used to identify groups by applying the HOP algorithm, which are then characterized using color-magnitude and stellar density radial profiles to estimate age, size, density, and shape. We test the method on Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys archival images of IC 2574 and find 75 dispersed stellar groups. Of these, 20 highly dispersed groups are good candidates for dissolving systems. We find few compact systems with evidence of dissolution, potentially indicating that star formation in this galaxy occurs mostly in unbound clusters or groups. These systems indicate that the dispersion rate of groups and clusters in IC 2574 is at most 0.45pc/Myr. The location of the groups found with HOP correlate well with HI contour map features. However, they do not coincide with HI holes, suggesting that those holes were not created by star-forming regions.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/254/20
- Title:
- Stellar groups in Taurus field from Gaia DR2 & LAMOST
- Short Name:
- J/ApJS/254/20
- Date:
- 17 Jan 2022 14:18:37
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- In this work, we present a systematic search for stellar groups in the Taurus field by applying the DBSCAN algorithm to the data from Gaia DR2. We find 22 groups, consisting of 8 young groups (Groups 1-8) at ages of 2-4Myr and distances of ~130-170pc, and 14 old groups (Groups 9-22) at ages of 8-49Myr and distances of ~110-210pc. We characterize the disk properties of group members and find 19 new disk-bearing stars, 8 of which are in the young groups with 11 others belonging to the comparatively old groups at the ages of 8-11Myr. We characterize the accretion properties of the group members with H{alpha} emission lines in their Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope spectra, and discover one source in Group 10 at an age of 10Myr which still shows accretion activity. We investigate the kinematic relations among the old groups, find that Group 9 is kinematically related to the known Taurus members, and exclude any kinematic relations between Groups 10-22 and the known Taurus members.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AZh/87/853
- Title:
- Stellar groups of Orion's Sword region
- Short Name:
- J/AZh/87/853
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The region of Orion's Sword with coordinates RA=83.79{deg}, DE=-5.20{deg} and a size of 1.0{deg}x2.5{deg} is analyzed. We compiled a master catalog of stars observed in the optical, containing positions, proper motions, and UBV photometry for 1634 stars. Using the nearest-neighbor-distance technique, we subdivided the region into stellar groups with different numbers of members. The positions of five groups coincide with known clusters, and two groups coincide with aggregates of stars with H{alpha} emission. We have identified groups with low membership that are moving away from the system. We also considered the kinematic structure of the groups using the AD-diagram method we developed earlier. Most of the stellar clusters and groups display similar kinematics, with the exception of the group OMC-2, which is moving toward its own apex. We also confirmed the existence of the kinematic star group 189 discovered earlier; its position is close to the cluster NGC 1977, and it is probably a component of its corona.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/657/A41
- Title:
- Stellar halo of NGC 5128 (Centaurus A)
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/657/A41
- Date:
- 22 Feb 2022
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The extended stellar halos of galaxies contain important clues for investigating their assembly history and evolution. We investigate the resolved stellar content and the extended halo of NGC 5128 as a function of galactocentric distance, and trace the halo outward to its currently detectable limits. We used Hubble Space Telescope images obtained with the WFPC2, ACS, and WFC3 cameras equipped with F606W and F814W filters to resolve individual red giant branch (RGB) stars in 28 independent pointings across the halo of NGC 5128. The stellar halo analysis for 14 of these pointings is presented here for the first time. Star counts from deep VI color-magnitude diagrams reaching at least 1.5mag below the tip of the RGB are used to derive the surface density distribution of the halo. The contamination by Milky Way stars is assessed with a new control field, with models, and by combining optical and near-IR photometry. We present a new calibration of the WFC3 F606W + F814W photometry to the ground-based VI photometric system. The photometry shows that the stellar halo of NGC 5128 is dominated by old RGB stars that are present in all fields. The V-band surface brightness of fields changes from 23 to 32mag/arcsec^2^ between the innermost field only 8.3kpc from the galaxy center to our outermost halo fields, which are located 140 kpc away from the center along the major axis and 92 kpc along the minor axis. Within the inner ~30kpc, we also find evidence for a 2-3Gyr old population traced by asymptotic giant branch stars that are brighter than the tip of the RGB. This population contributes only up to 10% in total stellar mass if it is 2Gyr old, but a larger fraction of 30-40% is required if its age is 3Gyr. The stellar surface density profile is well fit by a classic r^1/4^ curve or a simple power-law form ~r^-3.1^ over the full radial range, with no obvious break in the slope, but with large field-to-field scatter. The ellipticity measured from integrated-light photometry in the inner parts, e=(b/a)=0.77, flattens to e=0.54+/-0.02 beyond 30kpc. Considering the flattening of the outer halo, the projection of the elliptical isophote on the semimajor axis for our most distant field reaches nearly 30 effective radii.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/786/L10
- Title:
- Stellar IMF mass normalization for z~1 galaxies
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/786/L10
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a key parameter for studying galaxy evolution. Here we measure the IMF mass normalization for a sample of 68 field galaxies in the redshift range 0.7-0.9 within the Extended Groth Strip. To do this we derive the total (stellar + dark matter) mass-to-light [(M/L)] ratio using axisymmetric dynamical models. Within the region where we have kinematics (about one half-light radius), the models assume (1) that mass follows light, implying negligible differences between the slope of the stellar and total density profiles, (2) constant velocity anisotropy ({beta}_z_=1-{sigma}_z_^2^/{sigma}_R_^2^=0.2), and (3) that galaxies are seen at the average inclination for random orientations (i.e., i=60{deg}, where i=90{deg} represents edge-on). The dynamical models are based on anisotropic Jeans equations, constrained by Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys imaging and the central velocity dispersion of the galaxies, extracted from good-quality spectra taken by the DEEP2 survey. The population (M/L) are derived from full-spectrum fitting of the same spectra with a grid of simple stellar population models. Recent dynamical modeling results from the ATLAS^3D^ project and numerical simulations of galaxy evolution indicate that the dark matter fraction within the central regions of our galaxies should be small. This suggests that our derived total (M/L) should closely approximate the stellar M/L. Our comparison of the dynamical (M/L) and the population (M/L) then implies that for galaxies with stellar mass M_*_>~10^11^ M_{sun}_, the average normalization of the IMF is consistent with a Salpeter slope, with a substantial scatter. This is similar to what is found within a similar mass range for nearby galaxies.