Results are presented from a multifrequency radio continuum survey of Markarian galaxies (MRKs) and are supplemented by IRAS infrared data from the Faint Source Survey. Radio data are presented for 899 MRKs observed at {nu}=4.755GHz with the NRAO-Green Bank 300 foot (91m) telescope, including nearly 88% of those objects in Markarian list VI-XIV. In addition, 1.415GHz measurements of 258 MRKs, over 30% of the MRKs accessible from NAIC-Arecibo, are reported. Radio continuum observations of smaller numbers of MRKs were made at 10.63GHz and at 23.1GHz and are also presented.
We explore the stellar population of M31 in a Spitzer Space Telescope survey utilizing IRAC and MIPS observations. Red supergiants are the brightest objects seen in the infrared; they are a prominent evolutionary phase. Due to their circumstellar envelopes, many of these radiate the bulk of their luminosity at IRAC wavelengths and do not stand out in the near-infrared or optically. Going fainter, we see large numbers of luminous asymptotic giant branch stars (AGB), many of which are known long-period variables. Relative to M33 the AGB carbon star population of M31 appears sparse, but this needs to be spectroscopically confirmed.
We report the results of a multi-year spectroscopic and photometric survey of novae in M31 that resulted in a total of 53 spectra of 48 individual nova candidates. Two of these, M31N 1995-11e and M31N 2007-11g, were revealed to be long-period Mira variables, not novae. These data double the number of spectra extant for novae in M31 through the end of 2009 and bring to 91 the number of M31 novae with known spectroscopic classifications. We find that 75 novae (82%) are confirmed or likely members of the FeII spectroscopic class, with the remaining 16 novae (18%) belonging to the He/N (and related) classes. These numbers are consistent with those found for Galactic novae. We find no compelling evidence that spectroscopic class depends sensitively on spatial position or population within M31 (i.e., bulge versus disk), although the distribution for He/N systems appears slightly more extended than that for the FeII class. We confirm the existence of a correlation between speed class and ejection velocity (based on line width), as in the case of Galactic novae. Follow-up photometry allowed us to determine light-curve parameters for a total of 47 of the 91 novae with known spectroscopic class. We confirm that more luminous novae generally fade the fastest and that He/N novae are typically faster and brighter than their FeII counterparts. In addition, we find a weak dependence of nova speed class on position in M31, with the spatial distribution of the fastest novae being slightly more extended than that of slower novae.
We describe a survey for variable QSOs carried out for 15 years with the UK Schmidt telescope, using IIIaJ plates exposed behind a Schott GG395 filter. Objects brighter than B=21.0 on a reference plate and displaying a peak to peak amplitude of variability larger than B=0.35mag are selected. Plates in U, V, R and I were also obtained.
Circumstellar environments of oxygen-rich stars are among the strongest SiO maser emitters. Physical processes such as collisions, infrared pumping, and overlaps favor the inversion of level population and produce maser emission at different vibrational states. Despite numerous observational and theoretical efforts, we still do not have a unified picture including all of the physical processes involved in SiO maser emission. The aim of this work is to provide homogeneous data in a large sample of oxygen-rich stars. We present a survey of 67 oxygen-rich stars from 7 to 1mm, in their rotational transitions from J=1-0 to J=5-4, for vibrational numbers v from 0 to 6 in the three main SiO isotopologs. We have used one of the 34 m NASA antennas at Robledo and the IRAM 30m radio telescope. The first tentative detection of a v=6 line is reported, as well as the detection of new maser lines. The highest vibrational levels seem confined to small volumes, presumably close to the stars. The J=1-0, v=2 line flux is greater than the corresponding v=1 in almost half of the sample, which may confirm a predicted dependence on the pulsation cycle. This database is potentially useful in models which should consider most of the physical agents, time dependency, and mass-loss rates. As a by-product, we report detections of 27 thermal rotational lines from other molecules, including isotopologs of SiS, H_2_S, SO, SO_2_, and NaCl.
We explore the impact of outer stellar companions on the occurrence rate of giant planets detected with radial velocities. We searched for stellar and planetary companions to a volume-limited sample of solar-type stars within 25pc. Using adaptive optics imaging observations from the Lick 3m and Palomar 200" Telescopes, we characterized the multiplicity of our sample stars, down to the bottom of the main sequence. With these data, we confirm field star multiplicity statistics from previous surveys. We additionally combined three decades of radial velocity (RV) data from the California Planet Search with newly collected RV data from Keck/HIRES and the Automated Planet Finder/Levy Spectrometer to search for planetary companions in these same systems. Using an updated catalog of both stellar and planetary companions, as well as detailed injection/recovery tests to determine our sensitivity and completeness, we measured the occurrence rate of planets among the single and multiple-star systems. We found that planets with masses in the range of 0.1-10M_J_ and with semimajor axes of 0.1-10au have an occurrence rate of 0.18_-0.03_^+0.04^ planets per star when they orbit single stars and an occurrence rate of 0.12{+/-}0.04 planets per star when they orbit a star in a binary system. Breaking the sample down by the binary separation, we found that only one planet-hosting binary system had a binary separation <100au, and none had a separation <50au. These numbers yielded planet occurrence rates of 0.20_-0.06_^+0.07^ planets per star for binaries with separation aB>100au and 0.04_-0.02_^+0.04^ planets per star for binaries with separation aB<100au. The similarity in the planet occurrence rate around single stars and wide primaries implies that wide binary systems should actually host more planets than single-star systems, since they have more potential host stars. We estimated a system-wide planet occurrence rate of 0.3 planets per wide binary system for binaries with separations aB>100au. Finally, we found evidence that giant planets in binary systems have a different semimajor-axis distribution than their counterparts in single-star systems. The planets in the single-star sample had a significantly higher occurrence rate outside of 1au than inside 1au by nearly 4{sigma}, in line with expectations that giant planets are most common near the snow line. However, the planets in the wide binary systems did not follow this distribution, but rather had equivalent occurrence rates interior and exterior to 1au. This may point to binary-mediated planet migration acting on our sample, even in binaries wider than 100au.
We present a comprehensive catalogue, the Survey of Surveys (SoS), built by homogeneously merging the radial velocity (RV) determinations of the largest ground-based spectroscopic surveys to date, such as APOGEE, GALAH, Gaia-ESO, RAVE, and LAMOST, using Gaia as reference. This pilot study serves to prove the concept and to test the methodology that we plan to apply in the future to the stellar parameters and abundance ratios as well. We have devised a multi-staged procedure that includes: i) the cross match between Gaia and the spectroscopic surveys using the official Gaia cross-match algorithm, ii) the normalization of uncertainties using repeated measurements or the three-cornered hat method, iii) the cross calibration of the RVs as a function of the main parameters they depend on (magnitude, effective temperature, surface gravity, metallicity, and signal-to-noise ratio) to remove trends and zero point offsets, and iv) the comparison with external high-resolution samples, such as the Gaia RV standards and the Geneva-Copenhagen survey, to validate the homogenization procedure and to calibrate the RV zero-point of the SoS catalogue. We provide the largest homogenized RV catalogue to date, containing almost 11 million stars, of which about half come exclusively from Gaia and half in combination with the ground-based surveys. We estimate the accuracy of the RV zero-point to be about 0.16-0.31km/s and the RV precision to be in the range 0.05-1.50km/s depending on the type of star and on its survey provenance. We validate the SoS RVs with open clusters from a high resolution homogeneous samples and provide the systemic velocity of 55 individual open clusters. Additionally, we provide median RVs for 532 clusters recently discovered by Gaia data.
A survey of the galactic plane was made with the Effelsberg 100-m telescope at a frequency of 4.875 GHz with a beamwidth of 2.6 arcmin. Table 1 is a list of 1186 radio sources in the surveyed area l = 357.5 to 60 deg, b = -1 to +1 deg. The primary calibration source was NGC 7027, which was assumed to have a flux density of 5.9 Jy (1 Jy = 10^-26^W.m-2.Hz-1). The uncertainty in day-to-day thermal calibration was +/- 5 to 10%.
We present the results from a sensitive X-ray survey of 26 nearby hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae (SLSNe-I) with Swift, Chandra, and XMM. This data set constrains the SLSN evolution from a few days until ~2000d after explosion, reaching a luminosity limit Lx~10^40^erg/s and revealing the presence of significant X-ray emission possibly associated with PTF 12dam. No SLSN-I is detected above Lx~10^41^erg/s, suggesting that the luminous X-ray emission Lx~10^45^erg/s associated with SCP 60F6 is not common among SLSNe-I. We constrain the presence of off-axis gamma-ray burst (GRB) jets, ionization breakouts from magnetar engines and the density in the sub-parsec environments of SLSNe-I through inverse Compton emission. The deepest limits rule out the weakest uncollimated GRB outflows, suggesting that if the similarity of SLSNe-I with GRB/SNe extends to their fastest ejecta, then SLSNe-I are either powered by energetic jets pointed far away from our line of sight ({theta}>30{deg}), or harbor failed jets that do not successfully break through the stellar envelope. Furthermore, if a magnetar central engine is responsible for the exceptional luminosity of SLSNe-I, our X-ray analysis favors large magnetic fields B>2x10^14^G and ejecta masses M_ej_>3M_{sun}_, in agreement with optical/UV studies. Finally, we constrain the pre-explosion mass-loss rate of stellar progenitors of SLSNe-I. For PTF 12dam we infer dM/dt<2x10^-5^M_{sun}_/yr, suggesting that the SN shock interaction with an extended circumstellar medium is unlikely to supply the main source of energy powering the optical transient and that some SLSN-I progenitors end their lives as compact stars surrounded by a low-density medium similar to long GRBs and type Ib/c SNe.
We present results from an adaptive optics survey for substellar and stellar companions to Sun-like stars. The survey targeted 266 F5-K5 stars in the 3Myr-3Gyr age range with distances of 10-190pc. Results from the survey include the discovery of two brown dwarf companions (HD 49197B and HD 203030B), 24 new stellar binaries, and a triple system. We infer that the frequency of 0.012-0.072M_{sun}_ brown dwarfs in 28-1590AU orbits around young solar analogs is 3.2^+3.1^_-2.7_% (2{sigma} limits). The result demonstrates that the deficiency of substellar companions at wide orbital separations from Sun-like stars is less pronounced than in the radial velocity "brown dwarf desert." We infer that the mass distribution of companions in 28-1590AU orbits around solar-mass stars follows a continuous dN/dM_2_{prop.to}M^-0.4^_2_ relation over the 0.01-1.0M_{sun}_ secondary mass range. While this functional form is similar to that for isolated objects less than 0.1M_{sun}_, over the entire 0.01-1.0M_{sun}_ range, the mass functions of companions and of isolated objects differ significantly. Based on this conclusion and on similar results from other direct imaging and radial velocity companion surveys in the literature, we argue that the companion mass function follows the same universal form over the entire range between 0 and 1590AU in orbital semimajor axis and ~0.01-20M_{sun}_ in companion mass. In this context, the relative dearth of substellar versus stellar secondaries at all orbital separations arises naturally from the inferred form of the companion mass function.