RR Lyrae pulsating stars have been extensively used as tracers of old stellar populations for the purpose of determining the ages of galaxies, and as tools to measure distances to nearby galaxies. ...There was accordingly considerable interest when the RR Lyrae star OGLE-BLG-RRLYR-02792 (referred to here as RRLYR-02792) was found to be a member of an eclipsing binary system, because the mass of the pulsator (hitherto constrained only by models) could be unambiguously determined. Here we report that RRLYR-02792 has a mass of 0.26 solar masses Msymbol see text and therefore cannot be a classical RR Lyrae star. Using models, we find that its properties are best explained by the evolution of a close binary system that started with Msymbol see text and 0.8Msymbol see textstars orbiting each other with an initial period of 2.9 days. Mass exchange over 5.4 billion years produced the observed system, which is now in a very short-lived phase where the physical properties of the pulsator happen to place it in the same instability strip of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram as that occupied by RR Lyrae stars. We estimate that only 0.2 per cent of RR Lyrae stars may be contaminated by systems similar to this one, which implies that distances measured with RR Lyrae stars should not be significantly affected by these binary interlopers.
In the era of precision cosmology, it is essential to determine the Hubble constant to an accuracy of three per cent or better. At present, its uncertainty is dominated by the uncertainty in the ...distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), which, being our second-closest galaxy, serves as the best anchor point for the cosmic distance scale. Observations of eclipsing binaries offer a unique opportunity to measure stellar parameters and distances precisely and accurately. The eclipsing-binary method was previously applied to the LMC, but the accuracy of the distance results was lessened by the need to model the bright, early-type systems used in those studies. Here we report determinations of the distances to eight long-period, late-type eclipsing systems in the LMC, composed of cool, giant stars. For these systems, we can accurately measure both the linear and the angular sizes of their components and avoid the most important problems related to the hot, early-type systems. The LMC distance that we derive from these systems (49.97 ± 0.19 (statistical) ± 1.11 (systematic) kiloparsecs) is accurate to 2.2 per cent and provides a firm base for a 3-per-cent determination of the Hubble constant, with prospects for improvement to 2 per cent in the future.
We performed a detailed analysis of the main theoretical uncertainties affecting the age at the lithium depletion boundary (LDB). To do that we computed almost 12 000 pre-main-sequence models with ...mass in the range 0.06, 0.4 M⊙ by varying input physics (nuclear reaction cross-sections, plasma electron screening, outer boundary conditions, equation of state, and radiative opacity), initial chemical elements abundances (total metallicity, helium and deuterium abundances, and heavy elements mixture), and convection efficiency (mixing length parameter, αML). As a first step, we studied the effect of varying these quantities individually within their extreme values. Then, we analysed the impact of simultaneously perturbing the main input/parameters without an a priori assumption of independence. Such an approach allowed us to build for the first time the cumulative error stripe, which defines the edges of the maximum uncertainty region in the theoretical LDB age. We found that the cumulative error stripe is asymmetric and dependent on the adopted mixing length value. For αML = 1.00, the positive relative age error ranges from 5 to 15 per cent, while for solar-calibrated mixing length, the uncertainty reduces to 5–10 per cent. A large fraction of such an error (≈40 per cent) is due to the uncertainty in the adopted initial chemical elements abundances.
Pre-main-sequence (PMS) models provide invaluable tools for the study of star-forming regions as they allow us to assign masses and ages to young stars. Thus, it is of primary importance to test the ...models against observations of PMS stars with dynamically determined masses. We developed a Bayesian method for testing the present generation of PMS models, which allows for a quantitative comparison with observations, largely superseding the widely used isochrones and tracks qualitative superposition.
Using the available PMS data, we tested the newest PISA PMS models, establishing good agreement with the observations. The data cover a mass range from ∼0.3 to ∼3.1 M⊙, temperatures from ∼3 × 103 to ∼1.2 × 104 K and luminosities from ∼3 × 10−2 to ∼60 L⊙. Masses are correctly predicted within 20 per cent of the observed values in most of the cases, and for some of them the difference is as small as 5 per cent. Nevertheless, some discrepancies are also observed and critically discussed.
By means of simulations, using typical observational errors, we evaluated the spread of log τsim− log τrec, i.e. simulated − recovered age distribution of the single objects. We also found that stars in binary systems simulated as coeval might be recovered as non-coeval, due to observational errors. The actual fraction of fake non-coevality is a complex function of the simulated ages, masses and mass ratios. We demonstrated that it is possible to recover the systems' ages with better precision than for single stars using the composite age-probability distribution, i.e. the product of the components' age distributions. Using this valuable tool, we estimated the ages of the presently observed PMS binary systems.
ABSTRACT
Spectroscopy from the final internal data release of the Gaia–ESO Survey (GES) has been combined with Gaia EDR3 to assign membership probabilities to targets observed towards 63 Galactic ...open clusters and 7 globular clusters. The membership probabilities are based chiefly on maximum likelihood modelling of the 3D kinematics of the targets, separating them into cluster and field populations. From 43 211 observed targets, 13 985 are identified as highly probable cluster members (P > 0.9), with an average membership probability of 0.993. The addition of GES radial velocities successfully drives down the fraction of false positives and we achieve better levels of discrimination in most clusters over the use of astrometric data alone, especially those at larger distances. Since the membership selection is almost purely kinematic, the union of this catalogue with GES and Gaia is ideal for investigating the photometric and chemical properties of clusters as a function of stellar mass, age, and Galactic position.
We present a new Bayesian approach to constrain the intrinsic parameters (stellar mass and age) of the eclipsing binary system-CEP0227-in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We computed several sets of ...evolutionary models covering a broad range in chemical compositions and in stellar mass. Independent sets of models were also constructed either by neglecting or by including a moderate convective core overshooting ( beta sub(ov) = 0.2) during central hydrogen-burning phases. Sets of models were also constructed either by neglecting or by assuming a canonical (eta = 0.4, 0.8) or an enhanced (eta = 4) mass-loss rate. The most probable solutions were computed in three different planes: luminosity-temperature, mass-radius, and gravity-temperature. By using the Bayes factor, we found that the most probable solutions were obtained in the gravity-temperature plane with a Gaussian mass prior distribution. The evolutionary models constructed by assuming a moderate convective core overshooting ( beta sub(ov) = 0.2) and a canonical mass-loss rate (eta = 0.4) give stellar masses for the primary (Cepheid)-M = 4.14 super(+0.04) sub(- 0.05) M sub(middot in circle)-and for the secondary-M = 4.15 super(+0.04) sub(-0.05) M sub(middot in circle)-that agree at the 1% level with dynamical measurements. Moreover, we found ages for the two components and for the combined system-t = 151 super(+4) sub(-3) Myr-that agree at the 5% level. The solutions based on evolutionary models that neglect the mass loss attain similar parameters, while those ones based on models that either account for an enhanced mass loss or neglect convective core overshooting have lower Bayes factors and larger confidence intervals. The dependence on the mass-loss rate might be the consequence of the crude approximation we use to mimic this phenomenon. By using the isochrone of the most probable solution and a Gaussian prior on the LMC distance, we found a true distance modulus-18.53 super(+0.02) sub(-0.0 2) mag-and a reddening value-E(B - V) = 0.142 super(+0.005) sub(-0.010) mag-that agree quite well with similar estimates in the literature.
Context. The last decade showed an impressive observational effort from the photometric and spectroscopic point of view for ancient stellar clusters in our Galaxy and beyond, leading to important and ...sometimes surprising results. Aims. The theoretical interpretation of these new observational results requires updated evolutionary models and isochrones spanning a wide range of chemical composition so that the possibility of multipopulations inside a stellar cluster is also taken also into account. Methods. With this aim we built the new “Pisa Stellar Evolution Database” of stellar models and isochrones by adopting a well-tested evolutionary code (FRANEC) implemented with updated physical and chemical inputs. In particular, our code adopts realistic atmosphere models and an updated equation of state, nuclear reaction rates and opacities calculated with recent solar elements mixture. Results. A total of 32 646 models have been computed in the range of initial masses 0.30 ÷ 1.10 M⊙ for a grid of 216 chemical compositions with the fractional metal abundance in mass, Z, ranging from 0.0001 to 0.01, and the original helium content, Y, from 0.25 to 0.42. Models were computed for both solar-scaled and α-enhanced abundances with different external convection efficiencies. Correspondingly, 9720 isochrones were computed in the age range 8 ÷ 15 Gyr, in time steps of 0.5 Gyr. The whole database is available to the scientific community on the web. Models and isochrones were compared with recent calculations available in the literature and with the color–magnitude diagram of selected Galactic globular clusters. The dependence of relevant evolutionary quantities, namely turn-off and horizontal branch luminosities, on the chemical composition and convection efficiency were analyzed in a quantitative statistical way and analytical formulations were made available for reader’s convenience. These relations can be useful in several fields of stellar evolution, e.g. evolutionary properties of binary systems, synthetic models for simple stellar populations and for star counts in galaxies, and chemical evolution models of galaxies.
We report the spectroscopic confirmation of the Kepler object of interest KOI-183.01 (Kepler-423b), a half-Jupiter mass planet transiting an old solar-like star every 2.7 days. Our analysis is the ...first to combine the full Kepler photometry (quarters 1−17) with high-precision radial velocity measurements taken with the FIES spectrograph at the Nordic Optical Telescope. We simultaneously modelled the photometric and spectroscopic data-sets using Bayesian approach coupled with Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. We found that the Kepler pre-search data conditioned light curve of Kepler-423 exhibits quarter-to-quarter systematic variations of the transit depth, with a peak-to-peak amplitude of ~4.3% and seasonal trends reoccurring every four quarters. We attributed these systematics to an incorrect assessment of the quarterly variation of the crowding metric. The host star Kepler-423 is a G4 dwarf with M⋆ = 0.85 ± 0.04 M⊙, R⋆ = 0.95 ± 0.04 R⊙, Teff= 5560 ± 80 K, M/H = − 0.10 ± 0.05 dex, and with an age of 11 ± 2 Gyr. The planet Kepler-423b has a mass of Mp= 0.595 ± 0.081MJup and a radius of Rp= 1.192 ± 0.052RJup, yielding a planetary bulk density of ρp = 0.459 ± 0.083 g cm-3. The radius of Kepler-423b is consistent with both theoretical models for irradiated coreless giant planets and expectations based on empirical laws. The inclination of the stellar spin axis suggests that the system is aligned along the line of sight. We detected a tentative secondary eclipse of the planet at a 2σ confidence level (ΔFec = 14.2 ± 6.6 ppm) and found that the orbit might have asmall non-zero eccentricity of 0.019+0.028-0.014. With a Bond albedo of AB = 0.037 ± 0.019, Kepler-423b is one of the gas-giant planets with the lowest albedo known so far.
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