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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
| Hα and the Ca II H and K lines as activity proxies for late-type stars
Context: The main chromospheric activity indicator is the S index, whichis the ratio of the flux in the core of the Ca II H and K lines to thecontinuum nearby, and is well studied for stars from F to K. Anotherchromospheric proxy is the Hα line, which is believed to betightly correlated with the Ca II index. Aims: In this work wecharacterize both chromospheric activity indicators, the one associatedwith the H and K Ca II lines and the other with Hα, for the wholerange of late type stars, from F to M. Methods: We present periodicmedium-resolution echelle observations covering the complete visualrange, taken at the CASLEO Argentinean Observatory over 7 years. We usea total of 917 flux-calibrated spectra for 109 stars that range from F6to M5. We statistically study these two indicators for stars ofdifferent activity levels and spectral types. Results: We directlyderive the conversion factor that translates the known S index to fluxin the Ca II cores, and extend its calibration to a wider spectralrange. We investigate the relation between the activity measurements inthe calcium and hydrogen lines, and found that the usual correlationobserved is the product of the dependence of each flux on stellarcolour, and not the product of similar activity phenomena.Tables 1 and 2 and full Figs. 1 and 6 are only available in electronicform at http://www.aanda.org
| Search for associations containing young stars (SACY). I. Sample and searching method
We report results from a high-resolution optical spectroscopic surveyaimed to search for nearby young associations and young stars amongoptical counterparts of ROSAT All-Sky Survey X-ray sources in theSouthern Hemisphere. We selected 1953 late-type (B-V~≥~0.6),potentially young, optical counterparts out of a total of 9574 1RXSsources for follow-up observations. At least one high-resolutionspectrum was obtained for each of 1511 targets. This paper is the firstin a series presenting the results of the SACY survey. Here we describeour sample and our observations. We describe a convergence method in the(UVW) velocity space to find associations. As an example, we discuss thevalidity of this method in the framework of the β Pic Association.
| A catalogue of eclipsing variables
A new catalogue of 6330 eclipsing variable stars is presented. Thecatalogue was developed from the General Catalogue of Variable Stars(GCVS) and its textual remarks by including recently publishedinformation about classification of 843 systems and making correspondingcorrections of GCVS data. The catalogue1 represents thelargest list of eclipsing binaries classified from observations.
| The Brown Dwarf Desert at 75-1200 AU
We present results of a comprehensive infrared coronagraphic search forsubstellar companions to nearby stars. The research consisted of (1) a178-star survey at Steward and Lick observatories, with opticalfollow-up from Keck Observatory, capable of detecting companions withmasses greater than 30 MJ, and semimajor axes between about140 to 1200 AU; (2) a 102-star survey using the Keck Telescope, capableof detecting extrasolar brown dwarfs and planets typically more massivethan 10 MJ, with semimajor axes between about 75 and 300 AU.Only one brown dwarf companion was detected, and no planets. Thefrequency of brown dwarf companions to G, K, and M stars orbitingbetween 75 and 300 AU is measured to be 1%+/-1%, the most precisemeasurement of this quantity to date. The frequency of massive (greaterthan 30 MJ) brown dwarf companions at 120-1200 AU is found tobe f=0.7%+/-0.7%. The frequency of giant planet companions with massesbetween 5 and 10 MJ orbiting between 75 and 300 AU ismeasured here for the first time to be no more than ~3%. Together withother surveys that encompass a wide range of orbital separations, theseresults imply that substellar objects with masses between 12 and 75MJ form only rarely as companions to stars. Theories of starformation that could explain these data are only now beginning toemerge.
| 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
| Dusty Debris around Solar-Type Stars: Temporal Disk Evolution
Using ISO-ISOPHOT, we carried out a survey of almost 150 stars to searchfor evidence of emission from dust orbiting young main-sequence stars,both in clusters and isolated systems. Over half of the detections arenew examples of dusty stellar systems and demonstrate that such dust canbe detected around numerous stars older than a few times 106yr. Fluxes at 60 and either 90 or 100 μm for the new excess sourcestogether with improved fluxes for a number of IRAS-identified sourcesare presented. Analysis of the excess luminosity relative to the stellarphotosphere shows a systematic decline of this excess with stellar ageconsistent with a power-law index of -2.
| The 74th Special Name-list of Variable Stars
We present the Name-list introducing GCVS names for 3153 variable starsdiscovered by the Hipparcos mission.
| A Multiplicity Survey of Chromospherically Active and Inactive Stars
Surveys of three samples of solar-type stars, segregated bychromospheric emission level, were made to determine their multiplicityfractions and to investigate the evolution of multiplicity with age. Intotal, 245 stars were searched for companions with DeltaV <= 3.0 andseparations of 0.035" to 1.08" using optical speckle interferometry. Byincorporating the visual micrometer survey for duplicity of theLamontHussey Observatory, the angular coverage was extended to 5.0" withno change in the DeltaV limit. This magnitude difference allows massratios of 0.63 and larger to be detected throughout a search region of2-127 AU for the stars observed. The 84 primaries observed in thechromospherically active sample are presumably part of a youngpopulation and are found to have a multiplicity fraction of 17.9% +/-4.6%. The sample of 118 inactive, presumably older, primaries wereselected and observed using identical methods and are found to have amultiplicity fraction of only 8.5% +/- 2.7%. Given the known linkbetween chromospheric activity and age, these results tentatively implya decreasing stellar multiplicity fraction from 1 to 4 Gyr, theapproximate ages of the two samples. Finally, only two of the 14 veryactive primaries observed were found to have a companion meeting thesurvey detection parameters. In this case, many of the systems areeither very young, or close, RS CVn type multiples that are unresolvableusing the techniques employed here.
| Metallicity effects on the chromospheric activity-age relation for late-type dwarfs
We show that there is a relationship between the age excess, defined asthe difference between the stellar isochrone and chromospheric ages, andthe metallicity as measured by the index [Fe/H] for late-type dwarfs.The chromospheric age tends to be lower than the isochrone age formetal-poor stars, and the opposite occurs for metal-rich objects. Wesuggest that this could be an effect of neglecting the metallicitydependence of the calibrated chromospheric emission-age relation. Wepropose a correction to account for this dependence. We also investigatethe metallicity distributions of these stars, and show that there aredistinct trends according to the chromospheric activity level. Inactivestars have a metallicity distribution which resembles the metallicitydistribution of solar neighbourhood stars, while active stars appear tobe concentrated in an activity strip on the logR'_HKx[Fe/H] diagram. Weprovide some explanations for these trends, and show that thechromospheric emission-age relation probably has different slopes on thetwo sides of the Vaughan-Preston gap.
| High-Resolution Spectroscopy of Some Very Active Southern Stars
We have obtained high-resolution echelle spectra of 18 solar-type starsthat an earlier survey showed to have very high levels of Ca ii H and Kemission. Most of these stars belong to close binary systems, but fiveremain as probable single stars or well-separated binaries that areyounger than the Pleiades on the basis of their lithium abundances andHα emission. Three of these probable single stars also lie morethan 1 mag above the main sequence in a color-magnitude diagram, andappear to have ages of 10 to 15 Myr. Two of them, HD 202917 and HD222259, also appear to have a kinematic association with thepre-main-sequence multiple system HD 98800.
| A Survey of Ca II H and K Chromospheric Emission in Southern Solar-Type Stars
More than 800 southern stars within 50 pc have been observed forchromospheric emission in the cores of the Ca II H and K lines. Most ofthe sample targets were chosen to be G dwarfs on the basis of colors andspectral types. The bimodal distribution in stellar activity first notedin a sample of northern stars by Vaughan and Preston in 1980 isconfirmed, and the percentage of active stars, about 30%, is remarkablyconsistent between the northern and southern surveys. This is especiallycompelling given that we have used an entirely different instrumentalsetup and stellar sample than used in the previous study. Comparisons tothe Sun, a relatively inactive star, show that most nearby solar-typestars have a similar activity level, and presumably a similar age. Weidentify two additional subsamples of stars -- a very active group, anda very inactive group. The very active group may be made up of youngstars near the Sun, accounting for only a few percent of the sample, andappears to be less than ~0.1 Gyr old. Included in this high-activitytail of the distribution, however, is a subset of very close binaries ofthe RS CVn or W UMa types. The remaining members of this population maybe undetected close binaries or very young single stars. The veryinactive group of stars, contributting ~5%--10% to the total sample, maybe those caught in a Maunder Minimum type phase. If the observations ofthe survey stars are considered to be a sequence of snapshots of the Sunduring its life, we might expect that the Sun will spend about 10% ofthe remainder of its main sequence life in a Maunder Minimum phase.
| Stroemgren photometry of F- and G-type stars brighter than V = 9.6. I. UVBY photometry
Within the framework of a large photometric observing program, designedto investigate the Galaxy's structure and evolution, Hβ photometryis being made for about 9000 stars. As a by-product, supplementary uvbyphotometry has been made. The results are presented in a cataloguecontaining 6924 uvby observations of 6190 stars, all south ofδ=+38deg. The overall internal rms errors of one observation(transformed to the standard system) of a program star in the interval6.5
| New Bright Southern Variable Stars
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