- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/512/A54
- Title:
- Teff and Fbol from Infrared Flux Method
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/512/A54
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Various effective temperature scales have been proposed over the years. Despite much work and the high internal precision usually achieved, systematic differences of order 100K (or more) among various scales are still present. We present an investigation based on the Infrared Flux Method aimed at assessing the source of such discrepancies and pin down their origin. We break the impasse among different scales by using a large set of solar twins, stars which are spectroscopically and photometrically identical to the Sun, to set the absolute zero point of the effective temperature scale to within few degrees. Our newly calibrated, accurate and precise temperature scale applies to dwarfs and subgiants, from super-solar metallicities to the most metal-poor stars currently known. At solar metallicities our results validate spectroscopic effective temperature scales, whereas for [Fe/H]<-2.5 our temperatures are roughly 100 K hotter than those determined from model fits to the Balmer lines and 200 K hotter than those obtained from the excitation equilibrium of Fe lines. Empirical bolometric corrections and useful relations linking photometric indices to effective temperatures and angular diameters have been derived. Our results take full advantage of the high accuracy reached in absolute calibration in recent years and are further validated by interferometric angular diameters and space based spectrophotometry over a wide range of effective temperatures and metallicities.
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Search Results
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/151/82
- Title:
- The 4 brightest red giants in the UFD galaxy Ret 2
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/151/82
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxy Reticulum 2 (Ret 2) was recently discovered in images obtained by the Dark Energy Survey (Diehl et al. 2014SPIE.9149E..0VD). We have observed the four brightest red giants in Ret 2 at high spectral resolution using the Michigan/Magellan Fiber System. We present detailed abundances for as many as 20 elements per star, including 12 elements heavier than the Fe group. We confirm previous detection of high levels of r-process material in Ret 2 (mean [Eu/Fe]=+1.69+/-0.05) found in three of these stars (mean [Fe/H]=-2.88+/-0.10). The abundances closely match the r-process pattern found in the well-studied metal-poor halo star CS 22892-052. Such r-process-enhanced stars have not been found in any other UFD galaxy, though their existence has been predicted by at least one model. The fourth star in Ret 2 ([Fe/H]=-3.42+/-0.20) contains only trace amounts of Sr ([Sr/Fe]=-1.73+/-0.43) and no detectable heavier elements. One r-process enhanced star is also enhanced in C (natal [C/Fe]~+1.1). This is only the third such star known, which suggests that the nucleosynthesis sites leading to C and r-process enhancements are decoupled. The r-process-deficient star is enhanced in Mg ([Mg/Fe]=+0.81+/-0.14), and the other three stars show normal levels of {alpha}-enhancement (mean [Mg/Fe]=+0.34+/-0.03). The abundances of other {alpha} and Fe-group elements closely resemble those in UFD galaxies and metal-poor halo stars, suggesting that the nucleosynthesis that led to the large r-process enhancements either produced no light elements or produced light-element abundance signatures indistinguishable from normal supernovae.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/823/114
- Title:
- The Cannon: a new approach to determine masses
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/823/114
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The mass of a star is arguably its most fundamental parameter. For red giant stars, tracers luminous enough to be observed across the Galaxy, mass implies a stellar evolution age. It has proven to be extremely difficult to infer ages and masses directly from red giant spectra using existing methods. From the Kepler and APOGEE surveys, samples of several thousand stars exist with high-quality spectra and asteroseismic masses. Here we show that from these data we can build a data-driven spectral model using The Cannon, which can determine stellar masses to ~0.07dex from APOGEE DR12 spectra of red giants; these imply age estimates accurate to ~0.2dex (40%). We show that The Cannon constrains these ages foremost from spectral regions with CN absorption lines, elements whose surface abundances reflect mass-dependent dredge-up. We deliver an unprecedented catalog of 70000 giants (including 20000 red clump stars) with mass and age estimates, spanning the entire disk (from the Galactic center to R~20kpc). We show that the age information in the spectra is not simply a corollary of the birth-material abundances [Fe/H] and [{alpha}/Fe], and that, even within a monoabundance population of stars, there are age variations that vary sensibly with Galactic position. Such stellar age constraints across the Milky Way open up new avenues in Galactic archeology.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/830/126
- Title:
- The Carina project. X. Radial velocities
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/830/126
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present new radial velocity (RV) measurements of old (horizontal branch) and intermediate-age (red clump) stellar tracers in the Carina dwarf spheroidal. They are based on more than 2200 low-resolution spectra collected with VIMOS at Very Large Telescope (VLT). The targets are faint (20<~V<~21.5mag), but the accuracy at the faintest limit is <=9km/s. These data were complemented with RV measurements either based on spectra collected with FORS2 and FLAMES/GIRAFFE at VLT or available in the literature. We ended up with a sample of 2748 stars and among them, 1389 are candidate Carina stars. We found that the intermediate-age stellar component shows a well-defined rotational pattern around the minor axis. The western and the eastern side of the galaxy differ by +5 and -4km/s when compared with the main RV peak. The old stellar component is characterized by a larger RV dispersion and does not show evidence of the RV pattern. We compared the observed RV distribution with N-body simulations for a former disky dwarf galaxy orbiting a giant Milky Way-like galaxy. We rotated the simulated galaxy by 60{deg} with respect to the major axis, we kept the observer on the orbital plane of the dwarf and extracted a sample of stars similar to the observed one. Observed and predicted V_rot_/{sigma} ratios across the central regions are in remarkable agreement. This evidence indicates that Carina was a disky dwarf galaxy that experienced several strong tidal interactions with the Milky Way. Owing to these interactions, Carina transformed from a disky to a prolate spheroid and the rotational velocity transformed into random motions.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/157/177
- Title:
- The evolutionary status of GK subgiants
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/157/177
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Snowden & Young (2005ApJS..157..126S) suggested that the reason why there are GK subgiants is because they are members of binaries, which would bring them above the main sequence in an Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram. They studied a sample of 30 G0-K1 IV stars and were disappointed to find only two to be spectroscopic binaries. With more accurate radial velocities I found seven binaries in their samples of subgiants and control stars; orbital elements are given for those seven. Using Hipparcos parallaxes and SIMBAD data, I found that nearly all of the G0-K1 IV stars fall on the evolutionary tracks by Girardi et al. (2000, J/A+AS/141/371) for Population I stars with masses of 0.9-1.9 M_{sun}_ and ages of up to 10^10^ yr, which are normal parameters for nearby field stars. Therefore there is no problem regarding the existence of GK subgiants.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/858/11
- Title:
- The NIR tip of RGB. I. JHK photometry of IC1613
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/858/11
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Based on observations from the FourStar near-infrared camera on the 6.5m Baade-Magellan telescope at Las Campanas, Chile, we present calibrations of the JHK luminosities of stars defining the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) in the halo of the Local Group dwarf galaxy IC1613. We employ metallicity- independent (rectified) T-band magnitudes-constructed using J-, H-, and K-band magnitudes and both (J-H) and (J-K) colors to flatten the upward-sloping red giant branch tips as otherwise seen in their apparent color-magnitude diagrams. We describe and quantify the advantages of working at these particular near-infrared wavelengths, which are applicable to both the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). We also note that these same wavelengths can be accessed from the ground for an eventual tie-in to Gaia for absolute astrometry and parallaxes to calibrate the intrinsic luminosity of the TRGB. Adopting the color terms derived from the IC 1613 data, as well as the zero points from a companion study of the Large Magellanic Cloud, whose distance is anchored to the geometric distances of detached eclipsing binaries, we find a true distance modulus of 24.32+/-0.02 (statistical) +/-0.05mag (systematic) for IC 1613, which compares favorably with the recently published multi-wavelength, multi-method consensus modulus of 24.30+/-0.05mag by Hatt et al. (2017, J/ApJ/845/146).
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/VI/125
- Title:
- Theoretical spectra of red giants and supergiants
- Short Name:
- VI/125
- Date:
- 10 Mar 2022
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- It remains difficult to interpret the near-IR emission of young stellar populations. One main reason is our incomplete understanding of the spectra of luminous red stars. This work provides a grid of theoretical spectra of red giant (RG) and red supergiant (RSG) stars, that extends through optical and near-IR wavelengths. For the first time, models are also provided with modified surface abundances of C, N and O, as a step towards accounting for the changes that occur due to convective dredge-up in red supergiants or may occur at earlier evolutionary stages in the case of rotation. The aims are (i) to assess how well current models reproduce observed spectra, in particular in the near-IR; (ii) to quantify the effects of the abundance changes on the spectra; and (iii) to determine how these changes affect estimates of fundamental stellar parameters.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/230/28
- Title:
- The populations of Carina. II. Abundances
- Short Name:
- J/ApJS/230/28
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Chemical abundances are presented for 19 elements in a sample of 63 red giants in the Carina dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph), based on homogeneous 1D/LTE model atmosphere analyses of our own observations (32 stars) and data available in the literature (a further 31 independent stars). The (Fe) metallicity and [{alpha}/Fe] distribution functions have mean values and dispersions of -1.59 and 0.33dex ([Fe/H] range: -2.68 to -0.64) and 0.07 and 0.13dex ([{alpha}/Fe] range: -0.27 to 0.25), respectively. We confirm the finding of Venn+ (2012, J/ApJ/751/102) that a small percentage (some 10% in the present investigation) of the sample shows clear evidence for significant enrichment by Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) ejecta. Calcium, with the most accurately determined abundance of the {alpha}-elements, shows an asymmetric distribution toward smaller values of [Ca/Fe] at all [Fe/H], most significantly over -2.0<[Fe/H]<-1.0, suggestive of incomplete mixing of the ejecta of SNe Ia with the ambient medium of each of Carina's generations. Approximate color-magnitude diagram age estimates are presented for the sample, and together with our chemical abundances, compared with the results of our previous synthetic color-magnitude diagram analysis, which reported the details of Carina's four well-defined populations. We searched for the Na-O anticorrelation universally reported in the Galaxy's globular clusters and confirm that this phenomenon does not exist in Carina. We also found that one of the 32 stars in our sample has an extremely enhanced lithium abundance-A(Li)_NLTE_=+3.36, consistent with membership of the ~1% group of Li-rich stars in dSph described by Kirby+ (2012ApJ...752L..16K).
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/784/170
- Title:
- The SEGUE K giant survey. II. Distances of 6036 stars
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/784/170
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present an online catalog of distance determinations for 6036 K giants, most of which are members of the Milky Way's stellar halo. Their medium-resolution spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey/Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration are used to derive metallicities and rough gravity estimates, along with radial velocities. Distance moduli are derived from a comparison of each star's apparent magnitude with the absolute magnitude of empirically calibrated color-luminosity fiducials, at the observed (g-r)_0_ color and spectroscopic [Fe/H]. We employ a probabilistic approach that makes it straightforward to properly propagate the errors in metallicities, magnitudes, and colors into distance uncertainties. We also fold in prior information about the giant-branch luminosity function and the different metallicity distributions of the SEGUE K-giant targeting sub-categories. We show that the metallicity prior plays a small role in the distance estimates, but that neglecting the luminosity prior could lead to a systematic distance modulus bias of up to 0.25mag, compared to the case of using the luminosity prior. We find a median distance precision of 16%, with distance estimates most precise for the least metal-poor stars near the tip of the red giant branch. The precision and accuracy of our distance estimates are validated with observations of globular and open clusters. The stars in our catalog are up to 125kpc from the Galactic center, with 283 stars beyond 50kpc, forming the largest available spectroscopic sample of distant tracers in the Galactic halo.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/816/80
- Title:
- The SEGUE K giant survey. III. Galactic halo
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/816/80
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We statistically quantify the amount of substructure in the Milky Way stellar halo using a sample of 4568 halo K giant stars at Galactocentric distances ranging over 5-125kpc. These stars have been selected photometrically and confirmed spectroscopically as K giants from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) project. Using a position-velocity clustering estimator (the 4distance) and a model of a smooth stellar halo, we quantify the amount of substructure in the halo, divided by distance and metallicity. Overall, we find that the halo as a whole is highly structured. We also confirm earlier work using blue horizontal branch (BHB) stars which showed that there is an increasing amount of substructure with increasing Galactocentric radius, and additionally find that the amount of substructure in the halo increases with increasing metallicity. Comparing to resampled BHB stars, we find that K giants and BHBs have similar amounts of substructure over equivalent ranges of Galactocentric radius. Using a friends-of-friends algorithm to identify members of individual groups, we find that a large fraction (~33%) of grouped stars are associated with Sgr, and identify stars belonging to other halo star streams: the Orphan Stream, the Cetus Polar Stream, and others, including previously unknown substructures. A large fraction of sample K giants (more than 50%) are not grouped into any substructure. We find also that the Sgr stream strongly dominates groups in the outer halo for all except the most metal-poor stars, and suggest that this is the source of the increase of substructure with Galactocentric radius and metallicity.
