Contents
Images
Upload your image
DSS Images Other Images
Related articles
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
| Long-wavelength observations of debris discs around sun-like stars
Context: Tracing the evolution of debris discs is essential for ourunderstanding of the architecture of planetary system. Even though theevolution of their inner discs has been recently studied with theSpitzer Space Telescope at mid- to far-infrared wavelengths, the outerdiscs are best characterised by sensitive millimetre observations. Aims: The goal of our study is to understand the evolution timescaleof circumstellar debris discs, and the physical mechanisms responsiblefor such evolution around solar-type stars. In addition, we make adetailed characterisation of the detected debris discs. Methods:Two deep surveys of circumstellar discs around solar-type stars atdifferent ages were carried out at 350 ?m with the CSO and at 1.2 mmwith the IRAM 30-m telescope. The dust disc masses were computed fromthe millimetre emission, where the discs are optically thin.Theoretically, the mass of the disc is expected to decrease with time.To test this hypothesis, we performed the generalised Kendall's taucorrelation and three different two-sample tests. A characterisation ofthe detected debris discs has been obtained by computing the collisionand Poynting-Robertson timescales and by modelling the spectral energydistribution. Results: The Kendall's tau correlation yields aprobability of 76% that the mass of debris discs and their age arecorrelated. Similarly, the three two-sample tests give a probabilitybetween 70 and 83% that younger and older debris systems belong todifferent parent populations in terms of dust mass. We detectedsubmillimetre/millimetre emission from six debris discs, enabling adetailed SED modelling. Conclusions: Our results on thecorrelation and evolution of dust mass as a function of age areconditioned by the sensitivity limit of our survey. Deeper millimetreobservations are needed to confirm the evolution of debris materialaround solar-like stars. In the case of the detected discs, thecomparison between collision and Poynting-Robertson timescales supportsthe hypothesis that these discs are dominated by collisions. Alldetected debris disc systems show the inner part evacuated from smallmicron-sized grains.This work is based on observations made with the IRAM (Institut deRadioastonomie Millimétrique) 30-m telescope and the CSO (CaltechSubmillimetre Observatory) 10-m telescope. IRAM is supported byINSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany), and IGN (Spain).
| Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Properties of Debris Dust Around Solar-Type Stars
We present Spitzer photometric (IRAC and MIPS) and spectroscopic (IRSlow resolution) observations for 314 stars in the Formation andEvolution of Planetary Systems Legacy program. These data are used toinvestigate the properties and evolution of circumstellar dust aroundsolar-type stars spanning ages from approximately 3 Myr-3 Gyr.We identify 46 sources that exhibit excess infrared emission above thestellar photosphere at 24 μm, and 21 sources with excesses at 70μm. Five sources with an infrared excess have characteristics ofoptically thick primordial disks, while the remaining sources haveproperties akin to debris systems. The fraction of systems exhibiting a24 μm excess greater than 10.2% above the photosphere is 15% for ages< 300 Myr and declines to 2.7% for older ages. The upper envelope tothe 70 μm fractional luminosity appears to decline over a similar agerange. The characteristic temperature of the debris inferred from theIRS spectra range between 60 and 180 K, with evidence for the presenceof cooler dust to account for the strength of the 70 μm excessemission. No strong correlation is found between dust temperature andstellar age. Comparison of the observational data with disk modelscontaining a power-law distribution of silicate grains suggests that thetypical inner-disk radius is gsim 10 AU. Although the interpretation isnot unique, the lack of excess emission shortward of 16 μm and therelatively flat distribution of the 24 μm excess for ages lsim 300Myr is consistent with steady-state collisional models.
| The Palomar/Keck Adaptive Optics Survey of Young Solar Analogs: Evidence for a Universal Companion Mass Function
We present results from an adaptive optics survey for substellar andstellar companions to Sun-like stars. The survey targeted 266 F5-K5stars in the 3 Myr-3 Gyr age range with distances of 10-190 pc.Results from the survey include the discovery of two brown dwarfcompanions (HD 49197B and HD 203030B), 24 new stellar binaries, and atriple system. We infer that the frequency of 0.012-0.072Msun brown dwarfs in 28-1590 AU orbits around young solaranalogs is 3.2+3.1 -2.7% (2σ limits).The result demonstrates that the deficiency of substellar companions atwide orbital separations from Sun-like stars is less pronounced than inthe radial velocity "brown dwarf desert." We infer that the massdistribution of companions in 28-1590 AU orbits around solar-mass starsfollows a continuous dN/dM 2 vprop M -0.42 relation over the 0.01-1.0 M sun secondary massrange. While this functional form is similar to that for isolatedobjects less than 0.1 M sun, over the entire 0.01-1.0 Msun range, the mass functions of companions and of isolatedobjects differ significantly. Based on this conclusion and on similarresults from other direct imaging and radial velocity companion surveysin the literature, we argue that the companion mass function follows thesame universal form over the entire range between 0 and 1590 AU inorbital semimajor axis and ≈ 0.01-20 M sun in companionmass. In this context, the relative dearth of substellar versus stellarsecondaries at all orbital separations arises naturally from theinferred form of the companion mass function.
| The Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Description of the Spitzer Legacy Science Database
We present the science database produced by the Formation and Evolutionof Planetary Systems (FEPS) Spitzer Legacy program. Data reduction andvalidation procedures for the IRAC, MIPS, and IRS instruments aredescribed in detail. We also derive stellar properties for the FEPSsample from available broadband photometry and spectral types, andpresent an algorithm to normalize Kurucz synthetic spectra to opticaland near-infrared photometry. The final FEPS data products include IRACand MIPS photometry for each star in the FEPS sample and calibrated IRSspectra.
| Evolution of Mid-Infrared Excess around Sun-like Stars: Constraints on Models of Terrestrial Planet Formation
We report observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope regarding thefrequency of 24 μm excess emission toward Sun-like stars. Ourunbiased sample is composed of 309 stars with masses 0.7-2.2Msolar and ages from <3 Myr to >3 Gyr that lack excessemission at wavelengths <=8 μm. We identify 30 stars that exhibitclear evidence of excess emission from the observed 24 μm/8 μmflux ratio. The implied 24 μm excesses of these candidate debris disksystems range from 13% (the minimum detectable) to more than 100%compared to the expected photospheric emission. The frequency of systemswith evidence for dust debris emitting at 24 μm ranges from 8.5%-19%at ages <300 Myr to <4% for older stars. The results suggest thatmany, perhaps most, Sun-like stars might form terrestrial planets.
| The Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Placing Our Solar System in Context with Spitzer
We provide an overview of the Spitzer Legacy Program, Formation andEvolution of Planetary Systems, that was proposed in 2000, begun in2001, and executed aboard the Spitzer Space Telescope between 2003 and2006. This program exploits the sensitivity of Spitzer to carry outmid-infrared spectrophotometric observations of solar-type stars. With asample of ~328 stars ranging in age from ~3 Myr to ~3 Gyr, we trace theevolution of circumstellar gas and dust from primordial planet-buildingstages in young circumstellar disks through to older collisionallygenerated debris disks. When completed, our program will help define thetimescales over which terrestrial and gas giant planets are built,constrain the frequency of planetesimal collisions as a function oftime, and establish the diversity of mature planetary architectures. Inaddition to the observational program, we have coordinated a concomitanttheoretical effort aimed at understanding the dynamics of circumstellardust with and without the effects of embedded planets, dust spectralenergy distributions, and atomic and molecular gas line emission.Together with the observations, these efforts will provide anastronomical context for understanding whether our solar system-and itshabitable planet-is a common or a rare circumstance. Additionalinformation about the FEPS project can be found on the team Web site.
| 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.
| Pulkovo compilation of radial velocities for 35495 stars in a common system.
Not Available
| High-Resolution Spectroscopy of some Active Southern Stars
High-resolution échelle spectra of 42 nearby southern solar-typestars have been obtained, in a search for young, single, active, andrapidly rotating sun-like stars suitable for Doppler imaging and ZeemanDoppler imaging studies. As a result of this survey, 13 stars weredetermined to be youthful with ages less than 600Myr (Hyades age) andeight of these were found to have projected rotational velocities inexcess of 15kms-1. In addition, five spectroscopic binarysystems were identified. Of those stars observed for this survey, HD106506 is the most outstanding target for mapping active regions. It isan apparently young and single star with rapid rotation (v sin i~80kms-1), strong Hα chromospheric activity (logR'Hα~-4.2), and deformation of the spectral lineprofiles indicating the presence of large starspots.
| 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
| Nearby young stars
We present the results of an extensive all-sky survey of nearby stars ofspectral type F8 or later in a systematic search of young (zero-age mainsequence) objects. Our sample has been derived by cross-correlating theROSAT All-Sky Survey and the TYCHO catalogue, yielding a total of 754candidates distributed more or less randomly over the sky. Follow-upspectroscopy of these candidate objects has been performed on 748 ofthem. We have discovered a tight kinematic group of ten stars withextremely high lithium equivalent widths that are presumably youngerthan the Pleiades, but again distributed rather uniformly over the sky.Furthermore, about 43 per cent of our candidates have detectable levelsof lithium, thus indicating that these are relatively young objects withages not significantly above the Pleiades age.Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory,Chile (ESO No. 62.I-0650, 66.D-0159(A), 67.D-0236(A)).
| 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.
| 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.
| SANTIAGO 91, a right ascension catalogue of 3387 stars (equinox J2000).
The positions in right ascension of 3387 stars belonging to the Santiago67 Catalogue, observed with the Repsold Meridian Circle at Cerro Calan,National Astronomical Observatory, during the period 1989 to 1994, aregiven. The average mean square error of a position, for the wholeCatalogue, is +/-0.009 s. The mean epoch of the catalogue is 1991.84.
| 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
|
Submit a new article
Related links
Submit a new link
Member of following groups:
|
Observation and Astrometry data
| Constellation: | Pyxis |
| Right ascension: | 08h33m15.38s |
| Declination: | -29°57'23.7" |
| Apparent magnitude: | 8.266 |
| Distance: | 45.725 parsecs |
| Proper motion RA: | -40.2 |
| Proper motion Dec: | 19.8 |
| B-T magnitude: | 9.068 |
| V-T magnitude: | 8.333 |
Catalogs and designations:
|
