Found 132 talks archived in Stars

I will talk about our current understanding of globular cluster (GC) formation and what we have yet to learn about them. I will particularly focus on the chemical and dynamical properties of the neglected GC NGC4372, which I studied for the first time with  high-resolution spectroscopic observations.
Its chemical abundances revealed it as a typical representative of the old, metal-poor halo group. More interesting, however, are its structural and kinematic properties as the cluster has an unusually high intrinsic rotation for its metallicity and appears to be rotationally flattened. I will discuss what
rotating GCs tell us about their early evolution.

MASTER-Kislovodsk auto-detection system discovered a faint transient in the Andromeda galaxy on January 13th 2015. It was originally identified as a classical nova and received designation M31N 2015-01a. Further observations showed discrepancies with the spectra and lightcurves typical for the classical novae. The transient was re-identified as a likely stellar merger (aka Luminous Red Nova (LRN)), similar to V838Mon. In this presentation I will deliver a short overview of our current understanding of this class of objects and a summary of the current state of the ongoing observing campaign of the M31 LRN. Recent results will be discussed with a particular emphasis on the contributions made possible by GTC and other observing facilities at Observatorio Roque de los Muchachos. At the final part of the presentation I will touch on follow up observations once M31 is available for observations again.

With the aim of testing the relation between supernova (SN) rate and star formation rate, we conducted a SN search in a sample of local starburst galaxies (SBs) where both star formation rates and extinction are extremely high. The search was performed in the near-infrared, where the bias due to extinction is reduced using HAWK-I on the VLT. We discovered six SNe, in excellent agreement with expectations, when considering that, even in our search, about 60% of events remain hidden in the nuclear regions due to a combination of reduced search efficiency and very high extinction.
In addition I will present my plans for next months at IAC for the "Starbursts and EMIR project". I will participate in the commissioning of the instrument at La Palma, collaborating in the development of the ETC and I  will compile a catalog of starbursts for EMIR with the aim to study their imprint in the cosmic evolution of galaxies.

Direct imaging of wide planetary mass companions provide a unique opportunity to fully characterize their spectroscopic and photometric properties. They share similar physical properties to gas giant exoplanets found by radial velocity and transit techniques, with overlapping temperatures in the range of ~1000–1500K and masses from a few to a dozen Jupiter masses. We have recently identified a young L-type companion at ~100 AU of a previously unrecognized M dwarf. We determined the parallactic distance of the system of 12.7 ± 1.0 pc. By comparison with evolutionary models we derived a mass of 73 (+20, -15) MJup for the primary, at around the substellar mass limit and 11.2 (+9.7, -1.8) MJup for the secondary, near the deuterium burning mass limit. In this talk I will present the properties of the two components of this new pair and discuss the possibilities for future thorough characterization.

I will report on the results of our paper published in Nature this week, outlining the discovery of a super-Chandrasekhar double-degenerate binary system at the heart of the planetary nebula Hen 2-428.  Planetary nebulae (PNe) represent the final stage in the evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars, forming from the mass ejected by the star during its AGB evolution before being ionised by the star's, now exposed, core.  As binarity is expected to play a key role in the formation of aspherical PN morphologies, we have been intensively searching for new binary central stars in a push towards a statistical sample.  One of our newly-discovered binary systems, lying at the heart of Hen 2-428, had a further surprise to reveal, with observations and modelling showing the system to consist of twin evolved stars with a total mass greater than the Chandrasekhar limit.  The short period of the system, only 4.2 hours, means that the two stars will merge together in approximately 700 Myr, resulting in a Supernova Type Ia.  While the super-Chandrasekhar merger of two white dwarfs has long been considered a formation pathway for SN Ia, this is the first system found that is confirmed to be both massive enough and in a tight enough orbit to merge in less than a Hubble time.

Understanding the atmospheric and evolutive properties of very low mass stars, brown dwarfs, and gas giant exoplanets have been important challenges for modelers around the world since the discovery of the first brown dwarfs in the Pleiades cluster (Rebolo et al. 1995) and in the field (Nakajima et al. 1995). The early studies of brown dwarfs have provided rich insights into atmospheric physics, with discoveries ranging from cloud formation (Tsuji et al. 1996), methane bands (Oppenheimer et al. 1995) and ammonia bands (Delorme et al. 2008), to the formation of wasi-molecular KI-H2 absorption (Allard et al. 2007), and to disequilibrium chemistry (Yelle & Griffith 2001). New classical 1D models yield spectral energy distribution (SED) that match relatively well despite these complexities. These models have for instance explained the spectral transition from M to L, T and now Y brown dwarf spectral types (Allard et al. 2013). However, in presence of surface inhomogeneities revealed recently for a nearby (2 pc) brown dwarf (Crossfield et al. 2014), the SED may well fit even exactly, but the model parameters could be far from exact, e.g. with the effective temperature by several hundred kelvins too cool in the case of dusty brown dwarfs and young gas giant exoplanets! I will review the progress achieved in reproducing the spectral properties of very low mass stars, brown dwarfs and gas giant exoplanets, and review progress in modeling more accurately their atmospheres using Radiation HydroDynamical (RHD) simulations.

Since the early 50' of last century the study of Horizontal Branch stars in Galactic GCs has been of pivotal relevance since the core He-burning stage is an 'amplifier' of any evolutionary/physical process occurring during the early evolutionary stages. Thanks to the huge observational effort devoted to this issue many outstanding 'anomalies' have been discovered concerning the physical properties of GC HB stars. The situation is becoming more complex when accounting for the discovery of the Multiple Population phenomenon in Galactic GCs. We will review the main anomalies related to the HB evolutionary stage, their (when available) theoretical interpretations, and current shortcomings. We will also discuss how the discovery of the Multiple Population Phenomenon offers a new approach for interpreting many observational evidence.

We will start by recalling the effects of rotation on stellar evolution and briefly explain its implementation in a stellar evolution code. We will present a set of various grids of massive stars models, and then show some recent results obtained by our new SYCLIST toolbox, which is able (among other things) to generate synthetic stellar clusters, including various physical ingredients, such as initial rotation and angle of view distributions, gravity and limb darkening, etc.

High Mas X-ray Binary Systems are important sources of information for many astrophysical fields of research. They are composed by a compact object (black hole or neutron star) and an early type star (usually known as the optical companion). Mass transfer from the later onto the compact companion ends up as very bright emission of high energy photons. The multi-wavelength approach becomes mandatory in order to understand these systems: a) Optical and IR bands are used to characterize the optical companion, b) Mass transfer and the local ambient matter in these systems can be traced in UV and IR bands, c) The behavior and properties of the compact companion can be inferred from X-rays/gamma-rays observations, etc. We will review how this approach helps to understand the behavior of several peculiar systems, including the discovery of optical counterparts, the estimation of compact object masses, the characterization of the ambient matter (local extinction), etc.