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Chemical Abundances of the Milky Way Thick Disk and Stellar Halo. I. Implications of [?/Fe] for Star Formation Histories in Their Progenitors
We present the abundance analysis of 97 nearby metal-poor (-3.3< [Fe/H] <-0.5) stars having kinematic characteristics ofthe Milky Way (MW) thick disk and inner and outer stellar halos. Thehigh-resolution, high-signal-to-noise optical spectra for the samplestars have been obtained with the High Dispersion Spectrograph mountedon the Subaru Telescope. Abundances of Fe, Mg, Si, Ca, and Ti have beenderived using a one-dimensional LTE abundance analysis code with KuruczNEWODF model atmospheres. By assigning membership of the sample stars tothe thick disk, inner halo, or outer halo components based on theirorbital parameters, we examine abundance ratios as a function of [Fe/H]and kinematics for the three subsamples in wide metallicity and orbitalparameter ranges. We show that, in the metallicity range of -1.5< [Fe/H] <=-0.5, the thick disk stars show constantly highmean [Mg/Fe] and [Si/Fe] ratios with small scatter. In contrast, theinner and the outer halo stars show lower mean values of these abundanceratios with larger scatter. The [Mg/Fe], [Si/Fe], and [Ca/Fe] for theinner and the outer halo stars also show weak decreasing trends with[Fe/H] in the range [Fe/H] >-2. These results favor thescenarios that the MW thick disk formed through rapid chemicalenrichment primarily through Type II supernovae of massive stars, whilethe stellar halo has formed at least in part via accretion of progenitorstellar systems having been chemically enriched with differenttimescales.
| Non-LTE effects on the lead and thorium abundance determinations for cool stars
Context. Knowing accurate lead abundances of metal-poor stars providesconstraints on the Pb production mechanisms in the early Galaxy.Accurately deriving thorium abundances permits a nucleo-chronometric agedetermination of the star. Aims: We aim to improve thecalculation of the Pb i and Th ii lines in stellar atmospheres based onnon-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) line formation, and toevaluate the influence of departures from LTE on Pb and Th abundancedeterminations for a range of stellar parameters by varying themetallicity from the solar value down to [Fe/H] = -3. Methods: Wepresent comprehensive model atoms for Pb i and Th ii and describecalculations of the Pb i energy levels and oscillator strengths. Results: The main non-LTE mechanism for Pb i is the ultravioletoverionization. We find that non-LTE leads to systematically depletedtotal absorption in the Pb i lines and accordingly, positive abundancecorrections. The departures from LTE increase with decreasingmetallicity. Using the semi-empirical model atmosphere HM74, wedetermine the lead non-LTE abundance for the Sun to be log?Pb, &sun; = 2.09, in agreement with the meteoriticlead abundance. We revised the Pb and Eu abundances of the two stronglyr-process enhanced stars CS 31082-001 and HE1523-0901 and the metal-poor stellar sample. Our new resultsprovide strong evidence of universal Pb-to-Eu relative r-process yieldsduring the course of Galactic evolution. The stars in the metallicityrange -2.3 < [Fe/H] < -1.4 have Pb/Eu abundance ratios that are,on average, 0.51 dex higher than those of strongly r-process enhancedstars. We conclude that the s-process production of lead started asearly as the time when Galactic metallicity had reached [Fe/H] = -2.3.The average Pb/Eu abundance ratio of the mildly metal-poor stars, with-1.4 ? [Fe/H] ? -0.59, is very close to the corresponding SolarSystem value, in line with the theoretical predictions that AGB starswith [Fe/H] ? -1 provided the largest contribution to the solarabundance of s-nuclei of lead. The departures from LTE for Th ii arecaused by the pumping transitions from the levels with Eexc< 1 eV. Non-LTE leads to weakened Th ii lines and positive abundancecorrections. Overall, the abundance correction does not exceed 0.2 dexwhen collisions with H i atoms are taken into account in statisticalequilibrium calculations.
| New constraints on the chemical evolution of the solar neighbourhood and Galactic disc(s). Improved astrophysical parameters for the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey
We present a re-analysis of the Geneva-Copenhagen survey, which benefitsfrom the infrared flux method to improve the accuracy of the derivedstellar effective temperatures and uses the latter to build a consistentand improved metallicity scale. Metallicities are calibrated onhigh-resolution spectroscopy and checked against four open clusters anda moving group, showing excellent consistency. The new temperature andmetallicity scales provide a better match to theoretical isochrones,which are used for a Bayesian analysis of stellar ages. With respect toprevious analyses, our stars are on average 100 K hotter and 0.1 dexmore metal rich, which shift the peak of the metallicity distributionfunction around the solar value. From Strömgren photometry we areable to derive for the first time a proxy for [?/Fe] abundances,which enables us to perform a tentative dissection of the chemical thinand thick disc. We find evidence for the latter being composed of anold, mildly but systematically alpha-enhanced population that extends tosuper solar metallicities, in agreement with spectroscopic studies. Ourrevision offers the largest existing kinematically unbiased sample ofthe solar neighbourhood that contains full information on kinematics,metallicities, and ages and thus provides better constraints on thephysical processes relevant in the build-up of the Milky Way disc,enabling a better understanding of the Sun in a Galactic context.Catalogue (Table 2) is only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp tocdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/530/A138
| Bayesian inference of stellar parameters and interstellar extinction using parallaxes and multiband photometry
Astrometric surveys provide the opportunity to measure the absolutemagnitudes of large numbers of stars, but only if the individualline-of-sight extinctions are known. Unfortunately, extinction is highlydegenerate with stellar effective temperature when estimated frombroad-band optical/infrared photometry. To address this problem, Iintroduce a Bayesian method for estimating the intrinsic parameters of astar and its line-of-sight extinction. It uses both photometry andparallaxes in a self-consistent manner in order to provide anon-parametric posterior probability distribution over the parameters.The method makes explicit use of domain knowledge by employing theHertzsprung-Russell Diagram (HRD) to constrain solutions and to ensurethat they respect stellar physics. I first demonstrate this method byusing it to estimate effective temperature and extinction from BVJHKdata for a set of artificially reddened Hipparcos stars, for whichaccurate effective temperatures have been estimated from high-resolutionspectroscopy. Using just the four colours, we see the expected strongdegeneracy (positive correlation) between the temperature andextinction. Introducing the parallax, apparent magnitude and the HRDreduces this degeneracy and improves both the precision (reduces theerror bars) and the accuracy of the parameter estimates, the latter byabout 35 per cent. The resulting accuracy is about 200 K in temperatureand 0.2 mag in extinction. I then apply the method to estimate theseparameters and absolute magnitudes for some 47 000 F, G, K Hipparcosstars which have been cross-matched with Two-Micron All-Sky Survey(2MASS). The method can easily be extended to incorporate the estimationof other parameters, in particular metallicity and surface gravity,making it particularly suitable for the analysis of the 109stars from Gaia.
| The Ubiquity of the Rapid Neutron-capture Process
To better characterize the abundance patterns produced by the r-process,we have derived new abundances or upper limits for the heavy elementszinc (Zn, Z= 30), yttrium (Y, Z= 39), lanthanum (La, Z= 57), europium(Eu, Z= 63), and lead (Pb, Z= 82). Our sample of 161 metal-poor starsincludes new measurements from 88 high-resolution and highsignal-to-noise spectra obtained with the Tull Spectrograph on the 2.7 mSmith Telescope at the McDonald Observatory, and other abundances areadopted from the literature. We use models of the s-process inasymptotic giant branch stars to characterize the high Pb/Eu ratiosproduced in the s-process at low metallicity, and our new observationsthen allow us to identify a sample of stars with no detectable s-processmaterial. In these stars, we find no significant increase in the Pb/Euratios with increasing metallicity. This suggests that s-processmaterial was not widely dispersed until the overall Galactic metallicitygrew considerably, perhaps even as high as [Fe/H] =-1.4, in contrastwith earlier studies that suggested a much lower mean metallicity. Weidentify a dispersion of at least 0.5 dex in [La/Eu] in metal-poor starswith [Eu/Fe] <+0.6 attributable to the r-process, suggesting thatthere is no unique "pure" r-process elemental ratio among pairs of rareearth elements. We confirm earlier detections of an anti-correlationbetween Y/Eu and Eu/Fe bookended by stars strongly enriched in ther-process (e.g., CS 22892-052) and those with deficiencies of the heavyelements (e.g., HD 122563). We can reproduce the range of Y/Eu ratiosusing simulations of high-entropy neutrino winds of core-collapsesupernovae that include charged-particle and neutron-capture componentsof r-process nucleosynthesis. The heavy element abundance patterns inmost metal-poor stars do not resemble that of CS 22892-052, but thepresence of heavy elements such as Ba in nearly all metal-poor starswithout s-process enrichment suggests that the r-process is a commonphenomenon.This paper includes data taken at The McDonald Observatory of TheUniversity of Texas at Austin.
| Multiplicity and Period Distribution of Population II Field Stars in Solar Vicinity
We examine a sample of 223 F, G, and early K metal-poor subdwarfs ([m/H]< -1) with high proper motions (?>0farcs2yr-1) at distances of up to 250 pc from the Sun. Bymeans of our own speckle interferometric observations conducted on the 6m Bolshoi Azimuthal Telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatoryof the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the spectroscopic and visualdata taken from the literature, we determine the frequency of binary andmultiple systems in this sample. The ratio of single, binary, triple,and quadruple systems among 221 primary components of the sample is147:64:9:1. We show that the distribution of orbital periods of binaryand multiple subdwarfs is asymmetric in the range of up to P =1010 days, and has a maximum at P =102-103 days, which differs from the distribution,obtained for the thin disk G dwarfs. We estimated the number ofundetected companions in our sample. Comparing the frequency of binarysubdwarfs in the field and in the globular clusters, we show that theprocess of halo field star formation by the means of destruction ofglobular clusters is very unlikely in our Galaxy. We discuss themultiplicity of old metal-poor stars in nearby stellar streams.
| The PASTEL catalogue of stellar parameters
Aims: The PASTEL catalogue is an update of the [Fe/H] catalogue,published in 1997 and 2001. It is a bibliographical compilation ofstellar atmospheric parameters providing (T_eff, log g, [Fe/H])determinations obtained from the analysis of high resolution, highsignal-to-noise spectra, carried out with model atmospheres. PASTEL alsoprovides determinations of the one parameter T_eff based on variousmethods. It is aimed in the future to provide also homogenizedatmospheric parameters and elemental abundances, radial and rotationalvelocities. A web interface has been created to query the catalogue onelaborated criteria. PASTEL is also distributed through the CDS databaseand VizieR. Methods: To make it as complete as possible, the mainjournals have been surveyed, as well as the CDS database, to findrelevant publications. The catalogue is regularly updated with newdeterminations found in the literature. Results: As of Febuary2010, PASTEL includes 30151 determinations of either T_eff or (T_eff,log g, [Fe/H]) for 16 649 different stars corresponding to 865bibliographical references. Nearly 6000 stars have a determination ofthe three parameters (T_eff, log g, [Fe/H]) with a high qualityspectroscopic metallicity.The catalogue can be queried through a dedicated web interface at http://pastel.obs.u-bordeaux1.fr/.It is also available in electronic form at the Centre de DonnéesStellaires in Strasbourg (http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=B/pastel),at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) orvia http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/515/A111
| The Geneva-Copenhagen survey of the solar neighbourhood. III. Improved distances, ages, and kinematics
Context: Ages, chemical compositions, velocity vectors, and Galacticorbits for stars in the solar neighbourhood are fundamental test datafor models of Galactic evolution. The Geneva-Copenhagen Survey of theSolar Neighbourhood (Nordström et al. 2004; GCS), amagnitude-complete, kinematically unbiased sample of 16 682 nearby F andG dwarfs, is the largest available sample with complete data for starswith ages spanning that of the disk. Aims: We aim to improve theaccuracy of the GCS data by implementing the recent revision of theHipparcos parallaxes. Methods: The new parallaxes yield improvedastrometric distances for 12 506 stars in the GCS. We also use theparallaxes to verify the distance calibration for uvby? photometryby Holmberg et al. (2007, A&A, 475, 519; GCS II). We add newselection criteria to exclude evolved cool stars giving unreliableresults and derive distances for 3580 stars with large parallax errorsor not observed by Hipparcos. We also check the GCS II scales of T_effand [Fe/H] and find no need for change. Results: Introducing thenew distances, we recompute MV for 16 086 stars, and U, V, W,and Galactic orbital parameters for the 13 520 stars that also haveradial-velocity measurements. We also recompute stellar ages from thePadova stellar evolution models used in GCS I-II, using the new valuesof M_V, and compare them with ages from the Yale-Yonsei andVictoria-Regina models. Finally, we compare the observed age-velocityrelation in W with three simulated disk heating scenarios to show thepotential of the data. Conclusions: With these revisions, thebasic data for the GCS stars should now be as reliable as is possiblewith existing techniques. Further improvement must await consolidationof the T_eff scale from angular diameters and fluxes, and the Gaiatrigonometric parallaxes. We discuss the conditions for improvingcomputed stellar ages from new input data, and for distinguishingdifferent disk heating scenarios from data sets of the size andprecision of the GCS.Full Table 1 is only available in electronic form at the CDS viaanonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or viahttp://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/501/941
| A Keck HIRES Doppler Search for Planets Orbiting Metal-Poor Dwarfs. II. On the Frequency of Giant Planets in the Metal-Poor Regime
We present an analysis of three years of precision radial velocity (RV)measurements of 160 metal-poor stars observed with HIRES on the Keck 1telescope. We report on variability and long-term velocity trends foreach star in our sample. We identify several long-term, low-amplitude RVvariables worthy of followup with direct imaging techniques. We placelower limits on the detectable companion mass as a function of orbitalperiod. Our survey would have detected, with a 99.5% confidence level,over 95% of all companions on low-eccentricity orbits with velocitysemiamplitude K gsim 100 m s–1, orMp sin i gsim 3.0 M J(P/yr)(1/3), fororbital periods P lsim 3 yr. None of the stars in our sampleexhibits RV variations compatible with the presence of Jovian planetswith periods shorter than the survey duration. The resulting averagefrequency of gas giants orbiting metal-poor dwarfs with–2.0lsim[Fe/H]lsim–0.6 is fp < 0.67% (at the1σ confidence level). We examine the implications of this nullresult in the context of the observed correlation between the rate ofoccurrence of giant planets and the metallicity of their main-sequencesolar-type stellar hosts. By combining our data set with the Fischer& Valenti (2005) uniform sample, we confirm that the likelihood of astar to harbor a planet more massive than Jupiter within 2 AU is asteeply rising function of the host's metallicity. However, the data forstars with –1.0lsim[Fe/H]lsim0.0 are compatible, in a statisticalsense, with a constant occurrence rate fp sime 1%. Ourresults can usefully inform theoretical studies of the process ofgiant-planet formation across two orders of magnitude in metallicity.
| Speckle interferometry of metal-poor stars in the solar neighborhood. II
The results of speckle interferometric observations of 115 metal-poorstars ([m/H] < ‑1) within 250 pc from the Sun and with propermotions µ ≳ 0.2″/yr, made with the 6-m telescope of theSpecial Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences,are reported. Close companions with separations ranging from0.034″ to 1″ were observed for 12 objects—G76-21,G59-1, G63-46, G135-16, G168-42, G141-47, G142-44, G190-10, G28-43,G217-8, G130-7, and G89-14—eight of them are astrometricallyresolved for the first time. The newly resolved systems include onetriple star—G190-10. If combined with spectroscopic and visualdata, our results imply a single:binary:triple:quadruple star ratio of147:64:9:1 for a sample of 221 primary components of halo and thick-diskstars.
| Oxygen abundances in nearby stars. Clues to the formation and evolution of the Galactic disk
The abundances of iron and oxygen are homogeneously determined in asample of 523 nearby (d<150 pc) FGK disk and halo stars withmetallicities in the range -1.5<[Fe/H]<0.5. Iron abundances wereobtained from an LTE analysis of a large set of Fe I and Fe II lineswith reliable atomic data. Oxygen abundances were inferred from arestricted non-LTE analysis of the 777 nm O I triplet. We adopted theinfrared flux method temperature scale and surface gravities based onHipparcos trigonometric parallaxes. Within this framework, theionization balance of iron lines is not satisfied: the mean abundancesfrom the Fe I lines are systematically lower by 0.06 dex than those fromthe Fe II lines for dwarf stars of Teff>5500 K and[Fe/H]<0.0, and giant stars of all temperatures and metallicitiescovered by our sample. The discrepancy worsens for cooler and metal-richmain-sequence stars. We use the stellar kinematics to compute theprobabilities of our sample stars to be members of the thin disk, thickdisk, or halo of the Galaxy. We find that the majority of thekinematically-selected thick-disk stars show larger [O/Fe] ratioscompared to thin-disk stars while the rest show thin-disk abundances,which suggests that the latter are thin-disk members with unusual(hotter) kinematics. A close examination of this pattern for disk starswith ambiguous probabilities shows that an intermediate population withproperties between those of the thin and thick disks does not exist, atleast in the solar neighborhood. Excluding the stars with unusualkinematics, we find that thick-disk stars show slowly decreasing [O/Fe]ratios from about 0.5 to 0.4 in the -0.8<[Fe/H]<-0.3 range. Usinga simple model for the chemical evolution of the thick disk we show thatthis trend results directly from the metallicity dependence of the TypeII supernova yields. At [Fe/H]>-0.3, we find no obvious indication ofa sudden decrease (i.e., a "knee") in the [O/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] pattern ofthick-disk stars that would connect the thick and thin disk trends at ahigh metallicity. We conclude that Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) did notcontribute significantly to the chemical enrichment of the thick disk.In the -0.8<[Fe/H]<+0.3 range, thin-disk stars show decreasing[O/Fe] ratios from about 0.4 to 0.0 that require a SN Ia contribution.The implications of these results for studies of the formation andevolution of the Galactic disk are discussed.Tables 4-6 are only available in electronic form at the CDS viaanonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or viahttp://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/465/271 Partially based onobservations obtained with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, which is a jointproject of the University of Texas at Austin, the Pennsylvania StateUniversity, Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximilians-UniversitätMünchen, and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen; and datafrom the UVES Paranal Observatory Project (ESO DDT Program ID266.D-5655).
| New Distant Companions to Known Nearby Stars. II. Faint Companions of Hipparcos Stars and the Frequency of Wide Binary Systems
We perform a search for faint, common proper motion companions ofHipparcos stars using the recently published Lépine-Shara ProperMotion-North catalog of stars with proper motionμ>0.15'' yr-1. Our survey uncovers a totalof 521 systems with angular separations3''<Δθ<1500'', with 15 triplesand 1 quadruple. Our new list of wide systems with Hipparcos primariesincludes 130 systems identified here for the first time, including 44 inwhich the secondary star has V>15.0. Our census is statisticallycomplete for secondaries with angular separations20''<Δθ<300'' and apparentmagnitudes V<19.0. Overall, we find that at least 9.5% of nearby(d<100 pc) Hipparcos stars have distant stellar companions withprojected orbital separations s>1000 AU. We observe that thedistribution in orbital separations is consistent with Öpik's law,f(s)ds~s-1ds, only up to a separation s~4000 AU, beyond whichit follows a more steeply decreasing power law f(s)ds~s-ldswith l=1.6+/-0.1. We also find that the luminosity function of thesecondaries is significantly different from that of the single stars'field population, showing a relative deficiency in low-luminosity(8
| Pulkovo compilation of radial velocities for 35495 stars in a common system.
Not Available
| Elemental abundance survey of the Galactic thick disc
We have performed an abundance analysis for F- and G- dwarfs of theGalactic thick-disc component. A sample of 176 nearby (d<= 150pc)thick-disc candidate stars was chosen from the Hipparcos catalogue andsubjected to a high-resolution spectroscopic analysis. Using accurateradial velocities combined with the Hipparcos astrometry, kinematics (U,V and W) and Galactic orbital parameters were computed. We estimate theprobability for a star to belong to the thin disc, the thick disc or thehalo. With a probability P>= 70 per cent taken as certain membership,we assigned 95 stars to the thick disc, 13 to the thin disc, and 20 tothe halo. The remaining 48 stars in the sample cannot be assigned withreasonable certainty to one of the three components.Abundances of C, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni,Cu, Zn, Y, Ba, Ce, Nd and Eu have been obtained. The abundances for thethick-disc stars are compared with those for the thin-disc members fromReddy et al. The ratios of α-elements (O, Mg, Si, Ca and Ti) toiron for thick-disc stars show a clear enhancement compared to thin-discmembers in the range -0.3 < [Fe/H] < -1.2. There are also otherelements - Al, Sc, V, Co, and possibly Zn - which show enhanced ratiosto iron in the thick disc relative to the thin disc. The abundances ofNa, Cr, Mn, Ni and Cu (relative to Fe) are very similar for thin- andthick-disc stars. The dispersion in abundance ratios [X/Fe] at given[Fe/H] for thick-disc stars is consistent with the expected scatter dueto measurement errors, suggesting a lack of `cosmic' scatter.A few stars classified as members of the thick disc by our kinematiccriteria show thin-disc abundances. These stars, which appear older thanmost thin-disc stars, are also, on average, younger than the thick-discpopulation. They may have originated early in the thin-disc history, andbeen subsequently scattered to hotter orbits by collisions. The thickdisc may not include stars with [Fe/H] > -0.3. The observedcompositions of the thin and thick discs seem to be consistent with themodels of galaxy formation by hierarchical clustering in a Lambda colddark matter (ΛCDM) universe.
| A Catalog of Northern Stars with Annual Proper Motions Larger than 0.15" (LSPM-NORTH Catalog)
The LSPM catalog is a comprehensive list of 61,977 stars north of theJ2000 celestial equator that have proper motions larger than 0.15"yr-1 (local-background-stars frame). The catalog has beengenerated primarily as a result of our systematic search for high propermotion stars in the Digitized Sky Surveys using our SUPERBLINK software.At brighter magnitudes, the catalog incorporates stars and data from theTycho-2 Catalogue and also, to a lesser extent, from the All-SkyCompiled Catalogue of 2.5 million stars. The LSPM catalog considerablyexpands over the old Luyten (Luyten Half-Second [LHS] and New LuytenTwo-Tenths [NLTT]) catalogs, superseding them for northern declinations.Positions are given with an accuracy of <~100 mas at the 2000.0epoch, and absolute proper motions are given with an accuracy of ~8 masyr-1. Corrections to the local-background-stars propermotions have been calculated, and absolute proper motions in theextragalactic frame are given. Whenever available, we also give opticalBT and VT magnitudes (from Tycho-2, ASCC-2.5),photographic BJ, RF, and IN magnitudes(from USNO-B1 catalog), and infrared J, H, and Ks magnitudes(from 2MASS). We also provide an estimated V magnitude and V-J color fornearly all catalog entries, useful for initial classification of thestars. The catalog is estimated to be over 99% complete at high Galacticlatitudes (|b|>15deg) and over 90% complete at lowGalactic latitudes (|b|>15deg), down to a magnitudeV=19.0, and has a limiting magnitude V=21.0. All the northern starslisted in the LHS and NLTT catalogs have been reidentified, and theirpositions, proper motions, and magnitudes reevaluated. The catalog alsolists a large number of completely new objects, which promise to expandvery significantly the census of red dwarfs, subdwarfs, and white dwarfsin the vicinity of the Sun.Based on data mining of the Digitized Sky Surveys (DSSs), developed andoperated by the Catalogs and Surveys Branch of the Space TelescopeScience Institute (STScI), Baltimore.Developed with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), aspart of the NASA/NSF NStars program.
| The Rise of the s-Process in the Galaxy
From newly obtained high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio spectrathe abundances of the elements La and Eu have been determined over thestellar metallicity range -3<[Fe/H]<+0.3 in 159 giant and dwarfstars. Lanthanum is predominantly made by the s-process in the solarsystem, while Eu owes most of its solar system abundance to ther-process. The changing ratio of these elements in stars over a widemetallicity range traces the changing contributions of these twoprocesses to the Galactic abundance mix. Large s-process abundances canbe the result of mass transfer from very evolved stars, so to identifythese cases we also report carbon abundances in our metal-poor stars.Results indicate that the s-process may be active as early as[Fe/H]=-2.6, although we also find that some stars as metal-rich as[Fe/H]=-1 show no strong indication of s-process enrichment. There is asignificant spread in the level of s-process enrichment even at solarmetallicity.
| Binary statistics among population II stars
Population II stars are old, metal-poor, Galactic halo stars with highproper motion. We have carried out a visual binary survey of 164 halostars in the solar neighborhood (median distance 100 pc), using infraredspeckle interferometry, adaptive optics, and wide field direct imaging.The sample is based on the lists of Population II stars of Carney et al.(1994) and Norris (1986), with reliable distances from HIPPARCOSmeasurements.At face value, we found 33 binaries, 6 triples, and 1 quadruple system.When we limit ourselves to K-band flux ratios larger than 0.1 (to avoidbackground contamination), the numbers drop to 9 binaries and 1 triple,corresponding to a binary frequency of 6 - 7 % above our angularresolution limit of about 0.1 arcsec. If we count all systems withK-band flux ratios greater than 0.01, we obtain 15 more binaries and 3more triples, corresponding to a binary frequency for projectedseparations in excess of 10 AU of around 20 %. This is to be comparedwith the frequency of spectroscopic binaries (up to a period of 3000days) of Population II stars of about 15 % (Latham et al. 2002). We alsodetermined a semi-major axis distribution for our visual Population IIbinary and triple systems, which appears to be remarkably different fromthat of Population I stars. Second epoch-observations must help confirmthe reality of our results.
| The Geneva-Copenhagen survey of the Solar neighbourhood. Ages, metallicities, and kinematic properties of 14 000 F and G dwarfs
We present and discuss new determinations of metallicity, rotation, age,kinematics, and Galactic orbits for a complete, magnitude-limited, andkinematically unbiased sample of 16 682 nearby F and G dwarf stars. Our63 000 new, accurate radial-velocity observations for nearly 13 500stars allow identification of most of the binary stars in the sampleand, together with published uvbyβ photometry, Hipparcosparallaxes, Tycho-2 proper motions, and a few earlier radial velocities,complete the kinematic information for 14 139 stars. These high-qualityvelocity data are supplemented by effective temperatures andmetallicities newly derived from recent and/or revised calibrations. Theremaining stars either lack Hipparcos data or have fast rotation. Amajor effort has been devoted to the determination of new isochrone agesfor all stars for which this is possible. Particular attention has beengiven to a realistic treatment of statistical biases and errorestimates, as standard techniques tend to underestimate these effectsand introduce spurious features in the age distributions. Our ages agreewell with those by Edvardsson et al. (\cite{edv93}), despite severalastrophysical and computational improvements since then. We demonstrate,however, how strong observational and theoretical biases cause thedistribution of the observed ages to be very different from that of thetrue age distribution of the sample. Among the many basic relations ofthe Galactic disk that can be reinvestigated from the data presentedhere, we revisit the metallicity distribution of the G dwarfs and theage-metallicity, age-velocity, and metallicity-velocity relations of theSolar neighbourhood. Our first results confirm the lack of metal-poor Gdwarfs relative to closed-box model predictions (the ``G dwarfproblem''), the existence of radial metallicity gradients in the disk,the small change in mean metallicity of the thin disk since itsformation and the substantial scatter in metallicity at all ages, andthe continuing kinematic heating of the thin disk with an efficiencyconsistent with that expected for a combination of spiral arms and giantmolecular clouds. Distinct features in the distribution of the Vcomponent of the space motion are extended in age and metallicity,corresponding to the effects of stochastic spiral waves rather thanclassical moving groups, and may complicate the identification ofthick-disk stars from kinematic criteria. More advanced analyses of thisrich material will require careful simulations of the selection criteriafor the sample and the distribution of observational errors.Based on observations made with the Danish 1.5-m telescope at ESO, LaSilla, Chile, and with the Swiss 1-m telescope at Observatoire deHaute-Provence, France.Complete Tables 1 and 2 are only available in electronic form at the CDSvia anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or viahttp://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/418/989
| Improved Astrometry and Photometry for the Luyten Catalog. II. Faint Stars and the Revised Catalog
We complete construction of a catalog containing improved astrometry andnew optical/infrared photometry for the vast majority of NLTT starslying in the overlap of regions covered by POSS I and by the secondincremental Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) release, approximately 44%of the sky. The epoch 2000 positions are typically accurate to 130 mas,the proper motions to 5.5 mas yr-1, and the V-J colors to0.25 mag. Relative proper motions of binary components are measured to 3mas yr-1. The false-identification rate is ~1% for11<~V<~18 and substantially less at brighter magnitudes. Theseimprovements permit the construction of a reduced proper-motion diagramthat, for the first time, allows one to classify NLTT stars intomain-sequence (MS) stars, subdwarfs (SDs), and white dwarfs (WDs). We inturn use this diagram to analyze the properties of both our catalog andthe NLTT catalog on which it is based. In sharp contrast to popularbelief, we find that NLTT incompleteness in the plane is almostcompletely concentrated in MS stars, and that SDs and WDs are detectedalmost uniformly over the sky δ>-33deg. Our catalogwill therefore provide a powerful tool to probe these populationsstatistically, as well as to reliably identify individual SDs and WDs.
| A Survey of Proper-Motion Stars. XVI. Orbital Solutions for 171 Single-lined Spectroscopic Binaries
We report 25,563 radial velocity measurements for 1359 single-linedstars in the Carney-Latham sample of 1464 stars selected for high propermotion. For 171 of these, we present spectroscopic orbital solutions. Wefind no obvious difference between the binary characteristics in thehalo and the disk populations. The observed frequency is the same, andthe period distributions are consistent with the hypothesis that the twosets of binaries were drawn from the same parent population. Thissuggests that metallicity in general, and radiative opacities inparticular, have little influence over the fragmentation process thatleads to short-period binaries. All the binaries with periods shorterthan 10 days have nearly circular orbits, while the binaries withperiods longer than 20 days exhibit a wide range of eccentricities and amedian value of 0.37. For the metal-poor high-velocity halo binaries inour sample, the transition from circular to eccentric orbits appears tooccur at about 20 days, supporting the conclusion that tidalcircularization on the main sequence is important for the oldestbinaries in the Galaxy. Some of the results presented here usedobservations made with the Multiple Mirror Telescope, a joint facilityof the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Arizona.
| Radial velocities of population II binary stars. I.
Radial velocities for 114 Hipparcos stars, mostly high transversevelocity binaries without previous radial velocity measurements, arepublished. Measurements are made with the CORAVEL-type radial velocityspectrometer. The accuracy of measurements is better than 1 km/s. Twostars, BD +30 deg 2129A and HD 117466AB are found to be radial velocityvariables, and three more stars, HD 119515A, HD 131597AB, and HD 153344,are possible radial velocity variables.
| Three-dimensional Spectral Classification of Low-Metallicity Stars Using Artificial Neural Networks
We explore the application of artificial neural networks (ANNs) for theestimation of atmospheric parameters (Teff, logg, and [Fe/H])for Galactic F- and G-type stars. The ANNs are fed withmedium-resolution (Δλ~1-2 Å) non-flux-calibratedspectroscopic observations. From a sample of 279 stars with previoushigh-resolution determinations of metallicity and a set of (external)estimates of temperature and surface gravity, our ANNs are able topredict Teff with an accuracy ofσ(Teff)=135-150 K over the range4250<=Teff<=6500 K, logg with an accuracy ofσ(logg)=0.25-0.30 dex over the range 1.0<=logg<=5.0 dex, and[Fe/H] with an accuracy σ([Fe/H])=0.15-0.20 dex over the range-4.0<=[Fe/H]<=0.3. Such accuracies are competitive with theresults obtained by fine analysis of high-resolution spectra. It isnoteworthy that the ANNs are able to obtain these results withoutconsideration of photometric information for these stars. We have alsoexplored the impact of the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) on the behaviorof ANNs and conclude that, when analyzed with ANNs trained on spectra ofcommensurate S/N, it is possible to extract physical parameter estimatesof similar accuracy with stellar spectra having S/N as low as 13. Takentogether, these results indicate that the ANN approach should be ofprimary importance for use in present and future large-scalespectroscopic surveys.
| Intrinsic colour calibration for F, G, K stars
We derive an intrinsic colour calibration for F-K stars using broad bandJohnson colours and line indices KP and HP2. Through this calibration wecan determine E(B-V) of an individual star within 0.03 mag. The E(B-V)values thus derived are in excellent agreement with those derived fromStrömgren photometry through the Schuster & Nissen(\cite{sch89}) calibration. The agreement is also good with thereddening maps of Burstein & Heiles (\cite{bur82}) and Schlegel etal. (\cite{sch98}), although in this case there exists a small offset ofabout 0.01 mag. This calibration may be applied to the large body ofdata of the HK survey extension which will be published in the nearfuture.
| Wide binaries among high-velocity and metal-poor stars
A catalogue of 122 wide binaries is presented. The list was compiled bysearching for common proper-motion companions to the more than 1200high-velocity and metal-poor stars of Schuster and collaborators. Westudy the separations for the wide binaries (< a> > 25 AU), andfind that they follow Oepik's distribution all the way up to 10 000 AU.A subgroup of them, the ones with the most halo-like orbits, followOepik's distribution up to 20 000 AU. The galactic orbits of all systemsare calculated, and galactic orbital parameters are used, along with themetallicites, to assign each one to the old thin disk, the thick disk,or the halo population. Table~2 is only available in electronic form atthe CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u.strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or viahttp://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/Abstract.html
| Estimation of Stellar Metal Abundance. II. A Recalibration of the Ca II K Technique, and the Autocorrelation Function Method
We have recalibrated a method for the estimation of stellar metalabundance, parameterized as [Fe/H], based on medium-resolution (1-2Å) optical spectra (the majority of which cover the wavelengthrange 3700-4500 Å). The equivalent width of the Ca II K line (3933Å) as a function of [Fe/H] and broadband B-V color, as predictedfrom spectrum synthesis and model atmosphere calculations, is comparedwith observations of 551 stars with high-resolution abundances availablefrom the literature (a sevenfold increase in the number of calibrationstars that were previously available). A second method, based on theFourier autocorrelation function technique first described by Ratnatunga& Freeman, is used to provide an independent estimate of [Fe/H], ascalibrated by comparison with 405 standard-star abundances.Metallicities based on a combination of the two techniques for dwarfsand giants in the color range 0.30<=(B-V)_0<=1.2 exhibit anexternal 1 sigma scatter of approximately 0.10-0.20 dex over theabundance range -4.0<=[Fe/H]<=0.5. Particular attention has beengiven to the determination of abundance estimates at the metal-rich endof the calibration, where our previous attempt suffered from aconsiderable zero-point offset. Radial velocities, accurate toapproximately 10 km s^-1, are reported for all 551 calibration stars.
| Vitesses radiales. Catalogue WEB: Wilson Evans Batten. Subtittle: Radial velocities: The Wilson-Evans-Batten catalogue.
We give a common version of the two catalogues of Mean Radial Velocitiesby Wilson (1963) and Evans (1978) to which we have added the catalogueof spectroscopic binary systems (Batten et al. 1989). For each star,when possible, we give: 1) an acronym to enter SIMBAD (Set ofIdentifications Measurements and Bibliography for Astronomical Data) ofthe CDS (Centre de Donnees Astronomiques de Strasbourg). 2) the numberHIC of the HIPPARCOS catalogue (Turon 1992). 3) the CCDM number(Catalogue des Composantes des etoiles Doubles et Multiples) byDommanget & Nys (1994). For the cluster stars, a precise study hasbeen done, on the identificator numbers. Numerous remarks point out theproblems we have had to deal with.
| A survey of proper motion stars. 12: an expanded sample
We report new photometry and radial velocities for almost 500 stars fromthe Lowell Proper Motion Catalog. We combine these results with ourprior sample and rederive stellar temperatures based on the photometry,reddening, metallicities (using chi squared matching of our 22,500 lowSignal to Noise (S/N) high resolution echelle spectra with a grid ofsynthetic spectra), distances, space motions, and Galactic orbitalparameters for 1269 (kinematics) and 1261 (metallicity) of the 1464stars in the complete survey. The frequency of spectroscopic binariesfor the metal-poor ((m/H) less than or equal to -1.2) stars with periodsshorter than 3000 days is at least 15%. The spectroscopic binaryfrequency for metal-rich stars ((m/H) greater than -0.5) appears to belower, about 9%, but this may be a selection effect. We also discussspecial classes of stars, including treatment of the double-linedspectroscopic binaries, and identification of subgiants. Four possiblenew members of the class of field blue stragglers are noted. We pointout the detection of three possible new white dwarfs, six broad-lined(binary) systems, and discuss briefly the three already knownnitrogen-rich halo dwarfs. The primary result of this paper will beavailable on CD-ROM, in the form of a much larger table.
| UVBY - beta photometry of high-velocity and metal-poor stars. VI - A second catalogue, and stellar populations of the Galaxy
A second catalog of uvby-beta photometry for 553 high-velocity stars ispresented. Combining the catalogs, reliable (Fe/H) values are obtainedfor 1214 stars and reliable kinematic parameters for 1149. The totalsample contains at least three significant, distinct stellar populationswith properties very similar to those given in the literature of the oldthin disk, thick disk, and halo. The thick-disk component has mean(Fe/H) about -0.50 +/- 0.10 dex and sigma(Fe/H) about 0.25 +/- 0.03 dex,but there is evidence for a significant thick-disk contribution down to(Fe/H) about -1.4. A diagonal cut in the V(rot), (Fe/H) diagramindicates that there is not a chemical gradient in the Galactic halo.The mean V(rot), mean (Fe/H) curve for the whole sample indicates thatthe halo evolved mostly independently of the disk.
| Halo common proper motion stars - Subdwarf distance scale, halo binary fraction, and UBVRI colors
Common proper motion stars identified by Luyten (1979, 1980) wereselected according to reduced proper motion and photometric criteria toproduce a list of candidate halo objects. UBVRI photometry was obtainedto identify genuine halo parts. About 20 percent of the stars with(Fe/H) less than -1.0 were found to have random errors not less thanseveral x 0.1 mag in distance modulus, in addition to the photometricerrors, thought to be due to the existence of close binary companions tosome of the common proper motion stars. The implications of these errorsfor kinematic studies of field Population II stars are considered.Systematic errors of order 16 percent were also detected in distancesderived from the U-B,B-V deblanketing technique. It is suggested thatPopulation II field stars did not originate in globular clusters whichsubsequently disintegrated but formed in less dense environments.Several K subdwarfs were found with very high UV excesses, comparablewith those predicted by some synthetic colors.
| New subdwarfs. VI - Kinematics of 1125 high-proper-motion stars and the collapse of the Galaxy
The UVW velocity components, planar eccentricities, and angular momentaof 878 high-proper-motion stars are determined using the radial-velocitydata of Fouts and Sandage (1986) and compared with chemical abundancesand photometric parallaxes from the UBV photometry of Sandage and Kowal(1986). The results are presented, along with published data on 247additional stars, in extensive tables and graphs and characterized indetail. Two approximately equal components are differentiated: alow-velocity component identified as part of the thick disk described byGilmore and Reid (1983) and a high-velocity halo component. The data arefound to support a model of Galactic collapse (with concomitant spinupand progressive chemical enrichment) which includes a rotating bulge(the thick disk) with kinematic and metallicity properties between thoseof the old thin disk and the halo.
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