ABSTRACT The population of classical novae in the Magellanic Clouds was poorly known because of a lack of systematic studies. There were some suggestions that nova rates per unit mass in the ...Magellanic Clouds were higher than in any other galaxy. Here, we present an analysis of data collected over 16 years by the OGLE survey with the aim of characterizing the nova population in the Clouds. We found 20 eruptions of novae, half of which are new discoveries. We robustly measure nova rates of 2.4 0.8 yr−1 (LMC) and 0.9 0.4 yr−1 (SMC) and confirm that the K-band luminosity-specific nova rates in both Clouds are 2-3 times higher than in other galaxies. This can be explained by the star formation history in the Magellanic Clouds, specifically the re-ignition of the star formation rate a few Gyr ago. We also present the discovery of the intriguing system OGLE-MBR133.25.1160, which mimics recurrent nova eruptions.
We present the analysis of Blazhko-type modulation in double-mode RR Lyrae (RRd) stars found in the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) photometry of the Galactic bulge. Modulation is ...detected in 15 stars. Most of them have non-typical period ratio of the radial modes. In the Petersen diagram, at a given period of the fundamental mode, they are located significantly below or above the sequence formed by the majority of RRd stars. Multiperiodic modulation is very frequent; two or three modulation periods are detected in eight stars. Modulation periods vary from similar to 20 to more than 300 d. Radial mode amplitudes can be modulated by a few to nearly 100 per cent. Both radial modes may be modulated with the same period. More commonly however, dominant modulation for the fundamental mode has different period than dominant modulation for the first overtone. Quite often modulation of only one mode is detected in the data. We find a clear feedback between pulsation amplitude of the dominant mode and mean stellar brightness: the lower the pulsation amplitude, the brighter the star. At phases of low pulsation amplitude, the mode periods are prone to fast changes. All the stars share the common feature: their pulsation properties are non-stationary. Amplitudes and phases of the radial modes vary irregularly on a long time-scale of a few hundred or thousand days. The short-term modulations are also irregular. One of the stars has switched the pulsation mode recently: from single-mode fundamental mode pulsation to RRd state. In other star the non-radial mode with characteristic similar to 0.61 period ratio to the first overtone is detected. This non-radial mode is likely modulated with the same period as the radial modes.
Because of the development of large-format, wide-field cameras, microlensing surveys are now able to monitor millions of stars with sufficient cadence to detect planets. These new discoveries will ...span the full range of significance levels including planetary signals too small to be distinguished from the noise. At present, we do not understand where the threshold is for detecting planets. MOA-2011-BLG-293Lb is the first planet to be published from the new surveys, and it also has substantial follow-up observations. This planet is robustly detected in survey+follow-up data ( Delta chi super(2) ~ 5400). The planet/host mass ratio is q = (5.3 + or - 0.2) x 10 super(-3). The best-fit projected separation is s = 0.548 + or - 0.005 Einstein radii. However, due to the s left right arrow s super(-1) degeneracy, projected separations of s super(-1) are only marginally disfavored at Delta chi super(2) = 3. A Bayesian estimate of the host mass gives ML = 0.43 super(+0.27) sub(-0.17) M sub(middot in circle), with a sharp upper limit of ML < 1.2 M sub(middot in circle) from upper limits on the lens flux. Hence, the planet mass is mp = 2.4 super(+1.5) sub(-0.9) M sub(Jup), and the physical projected separation is either r sub(perpendicular) Asymptotically = to 1.0 AU or r sub(perpendicular) Asymptotically = to 3.4 AU. We show that survey data alone predict this solution and are able to characterize the planet, but the Delta chi super(2) is much smaller ( Delta chi super(2) ~ 500) than with the follow-up data. The Delta chi super(2) for the survey data alone is smaller than for any other securely detected planet. This event suggests a means to probe the detection threshold, by analyzing a large sample of events like MOA-2011-BLG-293, which have both follow-up data and high-cadence survey data, to provide a guide for the interpretation of pure survey microlensing data.
ABSTRACT
We use photometric and spectroscopic observations of the eclipsing binary E32 in the globular cluster 47 Tuc to derive the masses, radii, and luminosities of the component stars. The system ...has an orbital period of 40.9 d, a markedly eccentric orbit with e = 0.24, and is shown to be a member of or a recent escaper from the cluster. We obtain $M_{\rm p} = 0.862\pm 0.005 \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$, $R_{\rm p} = 1.183\pm 0.003 \, \mathrm{R}_\odot$, $L_{\rm p} = 1.65\pm 0.05 \, \mathrm{L}_\odot$ for the primary and $M_{\rm s} = 0.827\pm 0.005 \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$, $R_{\rm s} = 1.004\pm 0.004 \, \mathrm{R}_\odot$, $L_{\rm s} = 1.14\pm 0.04\, \mathrm{L}_\odot$ for the secondary. Based on these data and on an earlier analysis of the binary V69 in 47 Tuc, we measure the distance to the cluster from the distance moduli of the component stars, and, independently, from a colour – surface brightness calibration. We obtain 4.55 ± 0.03 and 4.50 ± 0.07 kpc, respectively – values compatible within 1$\, \sigma$ with recent estimates based on Gaia DR2 parallaxes. By comparing the M–R diagram of the two binaries and the colour–magnitude diagram of 47 Tuc to Dartmouth model isochrones we estimate the age of the cluster to be 12.0 ± 0.5 Gyr, and the helium abundance of the cluster to be Y ≈ 0.25.
We present a collection of 10 111 genuine δ Sct-type pulsating variable stars detected in the OGLE-IV Galactic bulge fields. In this sample, 9835 variables are new discoveries. For most of the stars ...photometric data cover the whole decade 2010-2019. We illustrate a huge variety of light curve shapes of δ Sct variables. Long-term observations have allowed us to spot objects with evident period, amplitude, and mean brightness variations. Our analysis indicates that about 28% of the stars are single-mode pulsators. Fourteen δ Sct stars show additional eclipsing or ellipsoidal binary modulation. We report significant attenuation or even disappearance of the pulsation signal in six sources. The whole set of variables is a mix of objects representing various Milky Way's populations, with the majority of stars from the Galactic bulge. There are also representatives of the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. Some of the newly detected variables could be SX Phe-type stars residing in globular clusters. The collection, including full V- and I-band time-series data, is available to the astronomical community from the OGLE On-line Data Archive.
ABSTRACT
We report the discovery of a very young high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB) system associated with the supernova remnant (SNR) MCSNR J0513-6724 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), using ...XMM–Newton X-ray observations. The HMXB is located at the geometrical centre of extended soft X-ray emission, which we confirm as an SNR. The HMXB spectrum is consistent with an absorbed power law with spectral index ∼1.6 and a luminosity of 7 × 1033 erg s−1 (0.2–12 keV). Tentative X-ray pulsations are observed with a periodicity of 4.4 s and the OGLE I-band light curve of the optical counterpart from more than 17.5 yr reveals a period of 2.2324 ± 0.0003 d, which we interpret as the orbital period of the binary system. The X-ray spectrum of the SNR is consistent with non-equilibrium shock models as expected for young/less evolved SNRs. From the derived ionization time-scale we estimate the age of the SNR to be <6 kyr. The association of the HMXB with the SNR makes it the youngest HMXB, in the earliest evolutionary stage known to date. An HMXB as young as this can switch on as an accreting pulsar only when the spin period has reached a critical value. Under this assumption, we obtain an upper limit to the magnetic field of <5 × 1011 G. This implies several interesting possibilities including magnetic field burial, possibly by an episode of post-supernova hyper-critical accretion. Since these fields are expected to diffuse out on a time-scale of 103–104 yr, the discovery of a very young HMXB can provide us the unique opportunity to observe the evolution of the observable magnetic field for the first time in X-ray binaries.
We use nearly 20 yr of photometry obtained by the OGLE survey to measure the occurrence rate of wide-orbit (or ice giant) microlensing planets, i.e., with separations from ≈5 a.u. to ≈15 a.u. and ...mass-ratios from 10-4 to 0.033. In a sample of 3112 events we find six previously known wide-orbit planets and a new microlensing planet or brown dwarf OGLE-2017-BLG-0114Lb, for which close and wide orbits are possible and close orbit is preferred. We run extensive simulations of the planet detection efficiency, robustly taking into account the finite-source effects. We find that the extrapolation of the previously measured rate of microlensing planets significantly under-predicts the number of wide-orbit planets. On average, every microlensing star hosts 1.4+0.9_-0.6 ice giant planets.
Blue Large-Amplitude Pulsators (BLAPs) form a mysterious class of variable stars with typical periods of tens of minutes and amplitudes above 0.1 mag. In this work, we present results of a ...variability search focused on timescales shorter than 1 h, conducted in OGLE-IV Galactic disk fields containing about 1.1 billion stellar sources down to I≈20 mag. Twenty-five BLAPs have been detected, 20 of which are new discoveries. Their periods range from 8.4 min to 62.1 min. We have also found six new eclipsing binary systems with orbital periods from 38.3 min to 121.3 min and five short-period large-amplitude (> 0.17 mag in the I-band) variable stars of unknown type.
In an era of extensive photometric observations, the catalogs of RR Lyr type variable stars number tens of thousands of objects. The relation between the iron abundance Fe/H and the Fourier ...parameters of the stars light curve allows us to investigate mean metallicities and metallicity gradients in various stellar environments, independently of time-consuming spectroscopic observations. In this paper we use almost 6500 V- and I-band light curves of fundamental mode RR Lyr stars from the OGLE-IV survey to provide a relation between the V- and I-band phase parameter phi sub(31) used to estimate Fe/H. The relation depends on metallicity, which limits its applicability. We apply this relation to metallicity formulae developed for the Johnson V- and the Kepler Kp-band to obtain the relation between Fe/H and phi sub(31) for the I-band photometry. Last, we apply the new relation of Nemec to the OGLE-IV fundamental mode RR Lyr stars data and construct a metallicity map of the Magellanic Clouds. Median Fe/H is -1.39+ or -0.44 dex for the LMC and -1.77+ or -0.48 dex for the SMC, on the Jurcsik metallicity scale. We also find a metallicity gradient within the LMC with a slope of -0.029+ or -0.002 dex/kpc in the inner 5 kpc and -0.030+ or -0.003 dex/kpc beyond 8 kpc, and no gradient in-between (-0.019+ or -0.002 dex/kpc integrally). We do not observe a metallicity gradient in the SMC, although we show that the metal-rich RRab stars are more concentrated toward the SMC center than the metal-poor.
We investigate the influence of matter along the line of sight and in the strong lens vicinity on the properties of quad-image configurations and on the measurements of the Hubble constant (H
0). We ...use simulations of light propagation in a non-uniform universe model with the distribution of matter in space based on the data from Millennium Simulation. For a given strong lens and haloes in its environment we model the matter distribution along the line of sight many times, using different combinations of pre-computed deflection maps representing subsequent layers of matter on the path of rays. We fit the simulated quad-image configurations with time delays using non-singular isothermal ellipsoids with external shear as lens models, treating the Hubble constant as a free parameter. We get a large artificial catalogue of lenses with derived values of the Hubble constant, H
fit. The average and median of H
fit differ from the true value used in simulations by ≤0.5 km s−1 Mpc−1 which includes the influence of matter along the line of sight and in the lens vicinity, and uncertainty in lens parameters, except the slope of the matter distribution, which is fixed. The characteristic uncertainty of H
fit is ∼3 km s−1 Mpc−1. Substituting the lens shear parameters with values estimated from the simulations reduces the uncertainty to ∼2 km s−1 Mpc−1.
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