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An Overview of the Rotational Behavior of Metal-poor Stars
This paper describes the behavior of the rotational velocity inmetal-poor stars ([Fe/H] <= -0.5 dex) in different evolutionarystages, based on vsin i values from the literature. Our sample iscomprised of stars in the field and some Galactic globular clusters,including stars on the main sequence, the red giant branch (RGB), andthe horizontal branch (HB). The metal-poor stars are, mainly, slowrotators, and their vsin i distribution along the HR diagram is quitehomogeneous. Nevertheless, a few moderate to high values of vsin i arefound in stars located on the main sequence and the HB. We show that theoverall distribution of vsin i values is basically independent ofmetallicity for the stars in our sample. In particular, thefast-rotating main sequence stars in our sample present rotation ratessimilar to their metal-rich counterparts, suggesting that some of themmay actually be fairly young, in spite of their low metallicity, or elsethat at least some of them would be better classified as blue stragglerstars. We do not find significant evidence of evolution in vsin i valuesas a function of position on the RGB; in particular, we do not confirmprevious suggestions that stars close to the RGB tip rotate faster thantheir less-evolved counterparts. While the presence of fast rotatorsamong moderately cool blue HB stars has been suggested to be due toangular momentum transport from a stellar core that has retainedsignificant angular momentum during its prior evolution, we find thatany such transport mechanisms most likely operate very fast as the stararrives on the zero-age HB (ZAHB), since we do not find a link betweenevolution off the ZAHB and vsin i values. We present an extensivetabulation of all quantities discussed in this paper, including rotationvelocities, temperatures, gravities, and metallicities [Fe/H], as wellas broadband magnitudes and colors.
| Rotation and Macroturbulence in Metal-Poor Field Red Giant and Red Horizontal Branch Stars
We report the results for rotational velocities, Vrot sin i,and macroturbulence dispersions, ζRT, for 12 metal-poorfield red giant branch (RGB) stars and 7 metal-poor field red horizontalbranch (RHB) stars. The results are based on Fourier transform analysesof absorption line profiles from high-resolution (R ≈ 120,000),high-S/N (≈215 per pixel; ≈345 per resolution element) spectraobtained with the Gecko spectrograph at the Canada-France-HawaiiTelescope (CFHT). The stars were selected from the authors' previousstudies of 20 RHB and 116 RGB stars, based primarily onlarger-than-average line-broadening values. We find thatζRT values for the metal-poor RGB stars are very similarto those for metal-rich disk giants studied earlier by Gray and hiscollaborators. Six of the RGB stars have small rotational values, lessthan 2.0 km s-1, while five show significantrotation/enhanced line broadening, over 3 km s-1. We confirmthe rapid rotation rate for RHB star HD 195636, found earlier byPreston. This star's rotation is comparable to that of the fastest knownrotating blue horizontal branch (BHB) stars, when allowance is made fordifferences in radii and moments of inertia. The other six RHB starshave somewhat lower rotation but show a trend to higher values at highertemperatures (lower radii). Comparing our results with those for BHBstars from Kinman et al., we find that the fraction of rapidly rotatingRHB stars is somewhat lower than is found among BHB stars. The number ofrapidly rotating RHB stars is also smaller than we would have expectedfrom the observed rotation of the RGB stars. We devise two empiricalmethods to translate our earlier line-broadening results intoVrot sin i for all the RGB and RHB stars they studied.Binning the RGB stars by luminosity, we find that most metal-poor fieldRGB stars show no detectable sign, on average, of rotation, which is notsurprising given the stars' large radii. However, the most luminousstars, with MV <= -1.5, do show net rotation, with meanvalues of 2-4 km s-1, depending on the algorithm employed,and also show signs of radial velocity jitter and mass loss. This"rotation" may in fact prove to be due to other line-broadening effects,such as shock waves or pulsation.Based on observations obtained at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope(CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council of Canada, theInstitut National des Sciences de l'Univers of the Centre National de laRecherche Scientifique de France, and the University of Hawaii.
| Halo Star Streams in the Solar Neighborhood
We have assembled a sample of halo stars in the solar neighborhood tolook for halo substructure in velocity and angular momentum space. Oursample (231 stars) includes red giants, RR Lyrae variable stars, and redhorizontal branch stars within 2.5 kpc of the Sun with [Fe/H] less than-1.0. It was chosen to include stars with accurate distances, spacevelocities, and metallicities, as well as well-quantified errors. Withour data set, we confirm the existence of the streams found by Helmi andcoworkers, which we refer to as the H99 streams. These streams have adouble-peaked velocity distribution in the z-direction (out of theGalactic plane). We use the results of modeling of the H99 streams byHelmi and collaborators to test how one might use vz velocityinformation and radial velocity information to detect kinematicsubstructure in the halo. We find that detecting the H99 streams withradial velocities alone would require a large sample (e.g.,approximately 150 stars within 2 kpc of the Sun and within 20° ofthe Galactic poles). In addition, we use the velocity distribution ofthe H99 streams to estimate their age. From our model of the progenitorof the H99 streams, we determine that it was accreted between 6 and 9Gyr ago. The H99 streams have [α/Fe] abundances similar to otherhalo stars in the solar neighborhood, suggesting that the gas thatformed these stars were enriched mostly by Type II supernovae. We havealso discovered in angular momentum space two other possiblesubstructures, which we refer to as the retrograde and progradeoutliers. The retrograde outliers are likely to be halo substructure,but the prograde outliers are most likely part of the smooth halo. Theretrograde outliers have significant structure in the vφdirection and show a range of [α/Fe], with two having low[α/Fe] for their [Fe/H]. The fraction of substructure stars in oursample is between 5% and 7%. The methods presented in this paper can beused to exploit the kinematic information present in future largedatabases like RAVE, SDSS-II/SEGUE, and Gaia.
| Pulkovo compilation of radial velocities for 35495 stars in a common system.
Not Available
| Spectroscopic Binaries, Velocity Jitter, and Rotation in Field Metal-poor Red Giant and Red Horizontal-Branch Stars
We summarize 2007 radial velocity measurements of 91 metal-poor fieldred giants. Excluding binary systems with orbital solutions, ourcoverage averages 13.7 yr per star, with a maximum of 18.0 yr. We reportfour significant findings. (1) Sixteen stars are found to bespectroscopic binaries, and we present orbital solutions for 14 of them.The spectroscopic binary frequency of the metal-poor red giants, with[Fe/H]<=-1.4, for periods less than 6000 days, is 16%+/-4%, which isnot significantly different from that of comparable-metallicity fielddwarfs, 17%+/-2%. The two CH stars in our program, BD -1°2582 and HD135148, are both spectroscopic binaries. (2) Velocity jitter is presentamong about 40% of the giants with MV<=-1.4. The twobest-observed cases, HD 3008 and BD +22°2411, showpseudoperiodicities of 172 and 186 days, longer than any knownlong-period variable in metal-poor globular clusters. Photometricvariability seen in HD 3008 and three other stars showing velocityjitter hints that starspots are the cause. However, the phasing of thevelocity data with the photometry data from Hipparcos is not consistentwith a simple starspot model for HD 3008. We argue against orbitalmotion effects and radial pulsation, so rotational modulation remainsthe best explanation. The implied rotational velocities for HD 3008 andBD +22°2411, both with MV<=-1.4 and R~50Rsolar, exceed 12 km s-1. (3) Including HD 3008and BD +22°2411, we have found signs of significant excess linebroadening in eight of the 17 red giants with MV<=-1.4,which we interpret as rotation. In three cases, BD +30°2034, CD-37°14010, and HD 218732, the rotation is probably induced by tidallocking between axial rotation and the observed orbital motion with astellar companion. But this cannot explain the other five stars in oursample that display signs of significant rotation. This high frequencyof elevated rotational velocities does not appear to be caused bystellar mass transfer or mergers: there are too few main-sequencebinaries with short enough periods. We also note that the lack of anynoticeable increase in mean rotation at the magnitude level of the redgiant branch luminosity function ``bump'' argues against the rapidrotation's being caused by the transport of internal angular momentum tothe surface. Capture of a planetary-mass companion as a red giantexpands in radius could explain the high rotational velocities. (4) Wealso find significant rotation in at least six of the roughly 15 (40%)red horizontal-branch stars in our survey. It is likely that theenhanced rotation seen among a significant fraction of both blue and redhorizontal-branch stars arose when these stars were luminous red giants.Rapid rotation alone therefore appears insufficient cause to populatethe blue side of the horizontal branch. While the largest projectedrotational velocities seen among field blue and red horizontal-branchstars are consistent with their different sizes, neither are consistentwith the large values we find for the largest red giants. This suggeststhat some form of angular momentum loss (and possibly mass loss) hasbeen at work. Also puzzling is the apparent absence of rotation seen infield RR Lyrae variables. Angular momentum transfer and conservation inevolved metal-poor field stars thus pose many interesting questions forthe evolution of low-mass stars.
| New periodic variables from the Hipparcos epoch photometry
Two selection statistics are used to extract new candidate periodicvariables from the epoch photometry of the Hipparcos catalogue. Theprimary selection criterion is a signal-to-noise ratio. The dependenceof this statistic on the number of observations is calibrated usingabout 30000 randomly permuted Hipparcos data sets. A significance levelof 0.1 per cent is used to extract a first batch of candidate variables.The second criterion requires that the optimal frequency be unaffectedif the data are de-trended by low-order polynomials. We find 2675 newcandidate periodic variables, of which the majority (2082) are from theHipparcos`unsolved' variables. Potential problems with theinterpretation of the data (e.g. aliasing) are discussed.
| Kinematics of Metal-poor Stars in the Galaxy. II. Proper Motions for a Large Nonkinematically Selected Sample
We present a revised catalog of 2106 Galactic stars, selected withoutkinematic bias and with available radial velocities, distance estimates,and metal abundances in the range -4.0<=[Fe/H]<=0.0. This updateof the 1995 Beers & Sommer-Larsen catalog includes newly derivedhomogeneous photometric distance estimates, revised radial velocitiesfor a number of stars with recently obtained high-resolution spectra,and refined metallicities for stars originally identified in the HKobjective-prism survey (which account for nearly half of the catalog)based on a recent recalibration. A subset of 1258 stars in this cataloghave available proper motions based on measurements obtained with theHipparcos astrometry satellite or taken from the updated AstrographicCatalogue (second epoch positions from either the Hubble Space TelescopeGuide Star Catalog or the Tycho Catalogue), the Yale/San Juan SouthernProper Motion Catalog 2.0, and the Lick Northern Proper Motion Catalog.Our present catalog includes 388 RR Lyrae variables (182 of which arenewly added), 38 variables of other types, and 1680 nonvariables, withdistances in the range 0.1 to 40 kpc.
| Spectrophotometry: Revised Standards and Techniques
The telluric features redward of 6700 Å have been removed from theaccurate spectrophotometric standards of Hamuy et al. to permit morereliable relative and absolute spectrophotometry to be obtained from CCDspectra. Smooth fluxes from 3300 to 10500 Å are best determined bydividing the raw spectra of all objects taken in a night by the rawspectrum of a ``smooth'' spectrum star before deriving the instrumentalresponse function using the revised standard star fluxes. In this waythe telluric features and any large instrumental variation withwavelength are removed from the raw data, leaving smooth spectra thatneed only small corrections to place them on an absolute flux scale.These small corrections with wavelength are well described by alow-order polynomial and result in very smooth flux-calibrated spectra.
| Ca II H and K Photometry on the UVBY System. III. The Metallicity Calibration for the Red Giants
New photometry on the uvby Ca system is presented for over 300 stars.When combined with previous data, the sample is used to calibrate themetallicity dependence of the hk index for cooler, evolved stars. Themetallicity scale is based upon the standardized merger of spectroscopicabundances from 38 studies since 1983, providing an overlap of 122evolved stars with the photometric catalog. The hk index producesreliable abundances for stars in the [Fe/H] range from -0.8 to -3.4,losing sensitivity among cooler stars due to saturation effects athigher [Fe/H], as expected.
| ROSAT all-sky survey observations of PopII field binaries: X-ray activity of old, metal-poor stellar coronae.
This study represents the first X-ray observations of an extended sampleof Pop II field binaries, aimed at investigating the properties of old,metal-poor stellar coronae. Analysing X-ray observations from the ROSATall-sky survey, we detected only 13 (out of 86) Pop II systems (15%detection rate). The X-ray luminosity function, taking into account bothdetections and upper limits, has its median at logL_x_<=28.1erg/s,indicating a low average X-ray luminosity, with a high-luminosity tailat logL_x_~29-31erg/s. The only extreme metal-poor system detected is HD89499. Thus, the detection rate of extreme Pop II systems is lower thanof intermediate Pop II, possibly indicating extreme Pop II to betypically less luminous. The X-ray luminosity is not very wellcorrelated with orbital period; long-period Pop II binaries may havehigh X-ray luminosities and, surprisingly, short-period systems are notper se strong X-ray emitters. For a subsample of emission-line Pop IIbinaries, i.e. the halo component analogs to the RS CVn binaries, themedian X-ray luminosity is at least one order of magnitude lower thanfor the RS CVns. The lower activity levels of the Pop II systems may becaused in part by the presence of fewer evolved stars in the sample andlower metallicity. The extremely old age of Pop II binaries may alsogive rise to the unexpectedly low X-ray luminosities of some systems(e.g., CD-481741, BD+53080).
| Kinematics of metal-poor stars in the galaxy
We discuss the kinematic properties of a sample of 1936 Galactic stars,selected without kinematic bias, and with abundances (Fe/H) is less thanor equal to -0.6. The stars selected for this study all have measuredradial velocities, and the majority have abundances determined fromspectroscopic or narrow-/intermediate-band photometric techniques. Incontrast to previous examinations of the kinematics of the metal-poorstars in the Galaxy, our sample contains large numbers of stars that arelocated at distances in excess of 1 kpc from the Galactic plane. Thus, amuch clearer picture of the nature of the metal-deficient populations inthe Galaxy can now be drawn.
| Chromospheric activity in Population II binaries
We analyze Ca II and H-alpha observations for a smaple of 27 Pop IIbinaries to investigate their degree of chromospheric activity. We findthat Pop II binaries having periods shorter than around 10 days possessactive chromospheres. On the other hand binaries with longer periodsappear to be chromospherically quiet. Only one object clearly deviatesfrom this trend and our high resolution spectroscopic observationsreveal that this system contains an evolved star. We interpret theseresults as a clear sign that the nature of chromospheric activity in PopII binaries is of magnetic origin, powered by the tidal forces acting inthe short period systems. In this context activity can be a powerfultool to investigate the dynamical evolution of binary systems. The rapiddecay of chromospheric activity with increasing orbital period maysuggest that a minimum rotational velocity is necessary to trigger theonset of a powerful dynamo. Ca II and K observations can also be used todetermine more precise orbits, in fact in two systems previouslyclassified as single line spectroscopic binaries, the Ca II emission ofthe unseen companions is detected. Wilson-Bappu widths are measured for12 stars which may be used to derive additional information on thecomponents of the system.
| Population studies. II - Kinematics as a function of abundance and galactocentric position for (Fe/H) of -0.6 or less
A catalog is presented of some 1200 Galactic objects which have radialvelocities and (Fe/H) abundances of -0.6 or less. These data areanalyzed to yield information on the kinematic properties of the olderpopulations of the Galaxy and on the interdependence between kinematicsand abundance. It is found that the kinematics of the availablekinematically selected stars differ from those of the nonkinematicallyselected objects. No evidence is found for any significant difference inthe kinematic properties of the various halo subgroups, nor for anydependence of kinematics on abundance. While the rotation of the halo issmall at about 37 km/s for (Fe/H) of -1.2 or less, it rises quickly forhigher abundances to a value of about 160 km/s at (Fe/H) = 0.6. Objectsin the abundance range -0.9 to -0.6 appear to belong predominantly to apopulation possessing the kinematic characteristics of a thick disk. Theimplications of these findings for the suggestion that globular clustersbelong to the same population as the noncluster objects, for the originof the thick disk, and for the mass of the Galaxy are discussed.
| The kinematics of halo red giants
The present 337 radial velocities were obtained with typical accuraciesof 0.7 cm km/sec for 85 metal-poor field red giants, selected from thekinematically unbiased samples of Bond (1980) and Bidelman and MacConnel(1973). The multiply-observed stars suggest the field halo binaryfraction exceeds 10 percent. Using these velocities and those publishedby others, a sample of 174 red giants with Fe/H of not more than -1.5 isobtained. Their mean motion with respect to the local standard of restis -206 + or - 23 km/sec, and the velocity dispersions are sigma (R) of154 + or - 18 km/sec, sigma(theta) of 102 + or - 27 km/sec, andsigma(phi) of 107 + or - 15 km/sec. Using photometrically derivedabsolute magnitudes and published proper motions, orbital eccentricitiesare computed for 72 stars not already considered in a similar study ofsouthern stars by Norris et al. (1985). A few stars with e of less than0.4 are found.
| Population studies. I - The Bidelman-MacConnell 'weak-metal' stars
BRVI and DDO photometry are presented for 309 Bidelman-MacConnell'weak-metal' stars. Radial velocities are calculated for most of thestars having Fe/H abundances of no more than -0.8. The photometricobservations were carried out using the 0.6-meter and 1.0-metertelescopes of the Siding Spring Observatory. Photometric taxonomy wasused to classify the stars as dwarfs, giants, red-horizontal branchstars, and ultraviolet-bright stars, respectively. It is found that 35percent of the stars are giants; 50 percent are dwarfs; and 5 percentbelong to the red-horizontal branch group. The role of selection effectsin investigations of the formation of the Galaxy is discussed on thebasis of the photometric observations and the observational constraintsproposed by Eggen et al. (1962).
| Metal-Deficient Giants in the Galactic Field - Catalogue and Some Physical Parameters
Not Available
| Southern subdwarf photometry
UBV photometry and normalized UV excesses are reported for 176 southernmetal-poor stars selected from the objective-prism survey of Bidelmanand MacConnell (1973) as well as 49 other metal-deficient starsidentified in other surveys. Photometry is also presented for 32 otherstars lying near the 225 program stars (although not explicitlyidentified as such in the text, the program stars are apparentlysubdwarfs and subdwarf candidates). Previously determined spectral typesand degrees of line weakening are given for the 225 stars, andmetallicities are estimated on the basis of the degrees of lineweakening. It is noted that 33 F and G stars with extreme meannormalized UV excesses of approximately 0.22 mag have a mean Fe/H valueof -1.4 and probably represent halo subdwarfs, while 82 F and G starswith moderate UV excesses are mostly old disk stars.
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Observation and Astrometry data
| Constellation: | Microscope |
| Right ascension: | 20h57m27.38s |
| Declination: | -36°32'53.1" |
| Apparent magnitude: | 9.768 |
| Proper motion RA: | 24.8 |
| Proper motion Dec: | -41.3 |
| B-T magnitude: | 11.036 |
| V-T magnitude: | 9.873 |
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