We present a radial velocity study of the rapidly rotating B star Regulus that indicates the star is a single-lined spectroscopic binary. The orbital period (40.11 days) and probable semimajor axis (0.35AU) are large enough that the system is not interacting at present. However, the mass function suggests that the secondary has a low mass (M_2_>0.30M_{sun}_), and we argue that the companion may be a white dwarf. Such a star would be the remnant of a former mass donor that was the source of the large spin angular momentum of Regulus itself.
A metallicity, chemical composition, and kinematic survey has been conducted for a sample of 340 candidate field red horizontal-branch (RHB) stars. Spectra with high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio were gathered with the McDonald Observatory 2.7 m Tull and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope echelle spectrographs, and were used to determine effective temperatures, surface gravities, microturbulent velocities, [Fe/H] metallicities, and abundance ratios [X/Fe] for seven {alpha} and Fe-group species. The derived temperatures and gravities confirm that at least half of the candidates are true RHB stars, with (average) parameters T_eff_~5000 K and log g~2.5. From the {alpha} abundances alone, the thin and thick Galactic populations are apparent in our sample. Space motions for 90% of the program stars were computed from Hipparcos and Gaia parallaxes and proper motions. Correlations between chemical compositions and Galactic kinematics clearly indicate the existence of both thin-disk and thick-disk RHB stars.
The ESA PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) mission will search for terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. Because of telemetry limitations PLATO targets need to be pre-selected. In this paper we present an all sky catalog that will be fundamental to select the best PLATO fields and the most promising target stars, derive their fundamental parameters, analyze the instrumental performances and then plan and optimize follow-up observations. This catalog also represents a valuable resource for the general definition of stellar samples optimized for the search of transiting planets. We used Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) astrometry and photometry and 3D maps of the local interstellar medium to isolate FGK (V<=13) and M(V<=16) dwarfs and subgiant stars. We present the first public release of the all sky PLATO Input Catalog (asPIC1.1) containing a total of 2675539 stars among which 2378177 FGK dwarfs and subgiants and 297362 M dwarfs. The median distance in our sample is 428pc for FGK stars and 146 pc for M dwarfs, respectively. We derived the reddening of our targets and developed an algorithm to estimate stellar fundamental parameters (Teff, radius, mass) from astrometric and photometric measurements. We show that our overall (internal+external) uncertainties on the stellar parameters determination is ~230K (4%) for the effective temperatures, ~0.1R_{sun}_ (9%) for the stellar radii and ~0.1M_{sun}_ (11%) for the stellar mass. We release a special target list containing all known planet hosts cross-matched with our catalog.
