adsabs/SciX_UAT_keywords huggingface dataset:
Multiepoch Optical Images of IRC+10216 Tell about the Central Star and the Adjacent Environment

Six images of IRC+10216 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope at three epochs in 2001, 2011, and 2016 are compared in the rest frame of the central carbon star. An accurate astrometry has been achieved with the help of Gaia Data Release 2. The positions of the carbon star in the individual epochs are determined using its known proper motion, defining the rest frame of the star. In 2016, a local brightness peak with compact and red nature is detected at the stellar position. A comparison of the color maps between 2016 and 2011 epochs reveals that the reddest spot moved along with the star, suggesting a possibility of it being the dusty material surrounding the carbon star. The relatively red, ambient region is distributed in an Ω shape and corresponds well to the dusty disk previously suggested based on near-infrared polarization observations. In a larger scale, differential proper motion of multiple ring-like patterns in the rest frame of the star is used to derive the average expansion velocity of transverse wind components, resulting in ~12.5 km s-1(d/123 pc), where d is the distance to IRC+10216. Three-dimensional geometry is implied from its comparison with the line-of-sight wind velocity determined from half widths of submillimeter emission line profiles of abundant molecules. Uneven temporal variations in brightness for different searchlight beams and anisotropic distribution of the extended halo are revisited in the context of the stellar light illumination through a porous envelope with postulated longer-term variations for a period of ≲10 yr.

Keywords: asymptotic giant branch stars; circumstellar matter; stellar winds
The Sensitivity of Eclipse Mapping to Planetary Rotation

Mapping exoplanets across phases and during secondary eclipse is a powerful technique for characterizing Hot Jupiters in emission. Since these planets are expected to rotate about axes normal to their orbital planes, with rotation periods synchronized with their orbital periods, mapping provides a direct correspondence between the orbital phase and planetary longitude. We develop a framework to understand the information content of planets where their rotation states are not well constrained, by constructing bases of light curves across different rotation rates and obliquities that are orthogonal in integrated flux across the secondary eclipse. These demonstrate that brightness variation during eclipse may arise from a variety of rotation rates, obliquities, and map structures, requiring priors to properly disentangle each of these components. By modeling eclipse observations of the Warm Jupiter HAT-P-18b we demonstrate that, at a signal-to-noise equivalent to ~10 orbits with JWST, confusion about map structure is likely a concern only at the upper physical limits of possible rotation rates. Even without priors, one may nevertheless be able to put an order-of-magnitude constraint on rotation rate by determining at what rates the fitted map complexity is minimized, a prescription whose efficacy increases if out-of-eclipse data are available to isolate the effects of rotation. Finally, in the limit of maps with longitudinal symmetry, the projected obliquity in the plane of the sky determines the information available during eclipse, ranging from nondetections of structure to a basic constraint on hemispherical asymmetry and orientation depending on the obliquity angle.

Keywords: exoplanet atmospheres; exoplanet dynamics; exoplanet structure
A Two-stage Formalism for Common-envelope Phases of Massive Stars

We propose a new simple formalism to predict the orbital separations after common-envelope phases with massive-star donors. We focus on the fact that massive red supergiants tend to have a sizable radiative layer between the dense helium core and the convective envelope. Our formalism treats the common-envelope phase in two stages: dynamical inspiral through the outer convective envelope and thermal timescale mass transfer from the radiative intershell. With fiducial choices of parameters, the new formalism typically predicts much wider separations compared to the classical energy formalism. Moreover, our formalism predicts that final separations strongly depend on the donor evolutionary stage and companion mass. Our formalism provides a physically motivated alternative option for population synthesis studies to treat common-envelope evolution. This treatment will impact predictions for massive-star binaries, including gravitational-wave sources, X-ray binaries, and stripped-envelope supernovae.

Keywords: common envelope evolution; massive stars; low-mass x-ray binary stars; core-collapse supernovae; gravitational wave sources
Solar Energetic Particle Charge States and Abundances with Nonthermal Electrons

An important aspect of solar energetic particle (SEP) events is their source populations. Elemental abundance enhancements of impulsive SEP events, originating in presumed coronal reconnection episodes, can be fitted to steep power laws of A/Q, where A and Q are the atomic mass and ionic charge. Since thermal electron energies are enhanced and nonthermal electron distributions arise in the reconnection process, we might expect that ionic charge states Q would be increased through ionization interactions with those electron populations during the acceleration process. The temperature estimated from the SEPs corresponds to the charge state during the acceleration process, while the actual charge state measured in situ may be modified as the SEPs pass through the corona. We examine whether the temperature estimation from the A/Q would differ with various κ values in a κ function representing high-energy tail deviating from a Maxwellian velocity distribution. We find that the differences in the A/Q between a Maxwellian and an extreme κ distribution are about 10%–30%. We fit power-law enhancement of element abundances as a function of their A/Q with various κ values. Then, we find that the derived source region temperature is not significantly affected by whether or not the electron velocity distribution deviates from a Maxwellian, i.e., thermal, distribution. Assuming that electrons are heated in the acceleration region, the agreement of the SEP charge state during acceleration with typical active region temperatures suggests that SEPs are accelerated and leave the acceleration region in a shorter time than the ionization timescale.

Keywords: the sun; solar energetic particles; non-thermal radiation sources
Distances and Statistics of Local Molecular Clouds in the First Galactic Quadrant

We present an analysis of local molecular clouds ( $-6\lt {V}_{\mathrm{LSR}}\lt 30$ km s-1, i.e., <1.5 kpc) in the first Galactic quadrant ( $25\buildrel{\circ}\over{.} 8\lt l\lt 49\buildrel{\circ}\over{.} 7$ and $| b| \lt 5^\circ $ ), a pilot region of the Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting (MWISP) CO survey. Using the Spectral Clustering for Interstellar Molecular Emission Segmentation algorithm to divide large molecular clouds into moderate-size ones, we determined distances to 28 molecular clouds with the background-eliminated extinction-parallax method using the Gaia DR2 parallax measurements aided by AG and AV; the distance ranges from 250 to about 1.5 kpc. These incomplete distance samples indicate a linear relationship between the distance and the radial velocity (VLSR) with a scatter of 0.16 kpc, and kinematic distances may be systematically larger for local molecular clouds. In order to investigate fundamental properties of molecular clouds, such as the total sample number, the line width, the brightness temperature, the physical area, and the mass, we decompose the spectral cube using the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) algorithm. Post-selection criteria are imposed on DBSCAN clusters to remove the noise contamination, and we found that the separation of molecular cloud individuals is reliable based on a definition of independent consecutive structures in l-b-V space. The completeness of the local molecular cloud flux collected by the MWISP CO survey is about 80%. The physical area, A, shows a power-law distribution, dN/d $A\propto {A}^{-2.20\pm 0.18}$ , while the molecular cloud mass also follows a power-law distribution but is slightly flatter, dN/dM ∝ M-1.96 ± 0.11.

Keywords: molecular clouds; interstellar clouds; astrostatistics; interstellar dust extinction; interstellar molecules
The Importance of Having an Extended Point-spread Function in Low Surface-brightness Science

Obtaining and characterizing the extended point-spread function (PSF) is essential to extract accurate photometric information from deep imaging surveys. In this contribution, we present the extended PSFs of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). By stacking images of individual stars with different brightness, two-dimensional SDSS PSFs extending over 8 arcmin in radius for all the SDSS filters have been obtained. We demonstrate how to use the PSF models for correcting the scattered light field produced by the brightest stars in the Coma cluster central region field. This example shows the enormous importance of extended PSFs in the study of the low-surface brightness Universe, especially with the upcoming of ultra-deep surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). All PSF models and the scripts used to obtain them are publicly available and further details can be found in Infante-Sainz et al. (2020).

Keywords: astronomical methods; astronomy data analysis; catalogs; galaxies; galaxy stellar halos; low surface brightness galaxies; photometry; surveys
The Spectral Evolution Patterns and Implications of Gamma-Ray Burst X-Ray Flares

We present a time-resolved spectral analysis of bright X-ray flares observed by Swift X-ray telescope from 2004 December to 2021 December. We selected 58 bright flares from 56 gamma-ray burst X-ray afterglows to perform time-resolved spectral analysis. We find that there is a strong spectral evolution in X-ray flares. Spectral evolution exists in all the X-ray flares. We have not found flares without spectral evolutions in our samples. The spectrum of an X-ray afterglow is dominated by the flare when it exists. Four spectral evolution patterns were found, i.e., hard-to-soft, intensity tracking, soft-to-hard, and anti-intensity tracking. Most of the flares (46 flares, 79.3%) show a spectral evolution from hard to soft. Five (8.6%) flares are intensity tracking. Two (3.5%) flares show soft-to-hard. Five (8.6%) flares show anti-intensity tracking. Therefore, hard-to-soft spectral evolution patterns dominate the spectral evolutions of X-ray flares. In other words, the hard-to-soft spectral evolution pattern is the main evolution pattern of X-ray flares. Hard-to-soft, intensity tracking, and soft-to-hard spectral evolution patterns are the same as prompt emission spectral evolutions, indicating that the origin of flares should be the same as prompt emissions and the flares are the lower energy band emissions of the prompt emissions. The spectral evolution intensities are independent of the peak time and FWHM of the flares. In other words, the spectral evolution intensity is irrelevant to the flare occurrence time and its duration but related to the peak fluxes of flares. This means that the more luminous the flares, the stronger the spectral evolutions.

Keywords: light curves; gamma-ray bursts; spectral index
Two-epoch Orbit Estimation for Wide Binaries Resolved in Hipparcos and Gaia

The Hipparcos catalog and its Double and Multiple System Annex (DMSA) lists 4099 components with individual proper motions and coordinates on the epoch 1991.25. Many of these long-period binary stars are also present in Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2). Using the available relative positions and proper motions separated by 24.25 yr, the equations of relative orbital motion can be solved for the two epoch eccentric anomalies, orbital period, and eccentricity. This method employs elimination of the linear Thiele-Innes unknowns and nonlinear optimization of the remaining condition equations. The quality of these solutions is compromised by the insufficient condition and modest precision of the Hipparcos astrometric data, as revealed by Monte Carlo simulations with artificially perturbed data points. The presence of multiple systems and optical pairs can also perturb the results. Limited experiments with artificial data indicate that useful estimates can be obtained with a 25 yr epoch difference for wide binaries with orbital periods up to ∼500 yr. The prospects of this method dramatically improve with the proposed next-generation space astrometry missions such as Gaia-NIR and Theia, especially when additional conditions are included from astrometric or spectroscopic measurements. An ancillary catalog of cross-identification and astrometric information for 1295 double-star pairs cross-matched in Gaia DR2 and Hipparcos is also published.

Keywords: binary stars; orbit determination; wide binary stars; astrometry
The Mass Dependence of Hα Emission and Stellar Spindown for Fully Convective M Dwarfs

Fully convective M dwarfs typically remain rapidly rotating and magnetically active for billions of years, followed by an abrupt and mass-dependent transition to slow rotation and quiescence. A robust understanding of this process is complicated by difficulties in estimating M dwarf ages and potential dependencies on other variables such as birth environment or metallicity. To isolate the effect of mass, we consider M dwarfs in wide binaries. We identify 67 widely separated, fully convective (0.08–0.35 M ⊙) M dwarf binary systems using Gaia and measure the Hα feature for each component. We classify the pairs into three categories: systems where both components are active, systems where both are inactive, and candidate transition systems, where one component is active and the other inactive. We gather higher-resolution spectra of the candidate transition systems to verify that their behavior does not result from an unresolved third component, yielding one new triple with surprising activity levels. Neglecting this triple, we find 22 active, 36 inactive, and eight transition pairs. Our results are consistent with the epoch of spindown for these binaries being primarily determined by mass, with mild second-order effects; we place a 1σ upper limit of 0.5 Gyr or 25% on the dispersion in the mass-dependent spindown relation. Our findings suggest that the large dispersion in the spindown epoch previously observed for field stars of a given mass may stem from differences in birth environment, in addition to modest intrinsic stochasticity. We also see evidence that the wide binary population is dispersed over time due to dynamical processing.

Keywords: m dwarf stars; stellar rotation; stellar activity; late-type dwarf stars; low mass stars; wide binary stars; spectroscopic binary stars; gaia; spectroscopy
The Solar-cycle Variations of the Anisotropy of Taylor Scale and Correlation Scale in the Solar Wind Turbulence

The field-aligned anisotropy of the solar wind turbulence, which is quantified by the ratio of the parallel to the perpendicular correlation (and Taylor) length scales, is determined by simultaneous two-point correlation measurements during the time period 2001-2017. Our results show that the correlation scale along the magnetic field is the largest, and the correlation scale in the field-perpendicular directions is the smallest, at both solar maximum and solar minimum. However, the Taylor scale reveals inconsistent results for different stages of the solar cycles. During the years 2001-2004, the Taylor scales are slightly larger in the field-parallel directions, while during the years 2004-2017, the Taylor scales are larger in the field-perpendicular directions. The correlation coefficient between the sunspot number and the anisotropy ratio is employed to describe the effects of solar activity on the anisotropy of solar wind turbulence. The results show that the correlation coefficient regarding the Taylor scale anisotropy (0.65) is larger than that regarding the correlation scale anisotropy (0.43), which indicates that the Taylor scale anisotropy is more sensitive to the solar activity. The Taylor scale and the correlation scale are used to calculate the effective magnetic Reynolds number, which is found to be systematically larger in the field-parallel directions than in the field-perpendicular directions. The correlation coefficient between the sunspot number and the magnetic Reynolds number anisotropy ratio is -0.75. Our results will be meaningful for understanding the solar wind turbulence anisotropy and its long-term variability in the context of solar activity.

Keywords: solar wind; interplanetary turbulence; magnetohydrodynamics; space plasmas; solar activity; solar cycle; sunspots
Faint Debris Disk Peering through the Superflare Light Echo

We present the detectability of strong mid-infrared (MIR) light echoes from faint debris disks illuminated by bright superflares of M-dwarf stars. Circumstellar dust grains around an M-dwarf star are simultaneously heated by superflare radiation. One can thus expect their re-emission in the MIR wavelength regime. According to our model calculations for the Proxima Centauri system, the nearest M-dwarf star system, thermal emission echoes from an inner (r < 1 au) debris disk with a total mass down to that of the solar system's zodiacal dust are expected to emerge at wavelengths longer than ~10 μm with a strength comparable to or greater than a white-light superflare. Also, observable echoes from inner- (r ≲ 0.5 au) debris disks irradiated by energetic ( ≳1033.5 erg) superflares of nearby (D < 3 pc) M dwarfs are expected. Our simulation results indicate that superflare monitoring using high-speed optical instruments like OASES and its prompt follow-up using ground-based MIR instruments, such as TAO/MIMIZUKU, can detect these MIR light echoes from debris disks around solar neighborhood flare stars.

Keywords: debris disks; flare stars; time domain astronomy; observational astronomy
Toward a Unified Explanation for the Three-part Structure of Solar Coronal Mass Ejections

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are associated with the eruption of magnetic flux ropes (MFRs), which usually appear as hot channels in active regions and coronal cavities in quiet-Sun regions. CMEs often exhibit a classical three-part structure in the lower corona when imaged with white-light coronagraphs, including a bright front, dark cavity, and bright core. For several decades, the bright core and dark cavity have been regarded as the erupted prominence and MFR, respectively. However, recent studies have clearly demonstrated that both the prominence and hot-channel MFR can be observed as the CME core. The current research presents a three-part CME resulting from the eruption of a coronal prominence cavity on 2010 October 7, with observations from two vantage perspectives, i.e., edge-on from the Earth and face-on from the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO). Our observations illustrate two important results: (1) for the first time, the erupting coronal cavity is recorded as a channel-like structure in the extreme-ultraviolet passband, analogous to the hot-channel morphology, and is dubbed as the warm channel; and (2) both the prominence and warm-channel MFR (coronal cavity) in the extreme-ultraviolet passbands evolve into the CME core in the white-light coronagraphs of STEREO-A. The results suggest that we are working toward a unified explanation for the three-part structure of CMEs, in which both prominences and MFRs (hot or warm channels) are responsible for the bright core.

Keywords: solar coronal mass ejections; solar activity; solar prominences
Ionized-gas Metallicity of the Strong [O III]λ5007 Emission-line Compact Galaxies in the LAMOST Survey

This article reports a sample of 1830 strong [O III]λ5007 emission-line compact galaxies discovered with the LAMOST spectroscopic survey and the photometric catalog of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We newly identify 402 spectra of 346 strong [O III]λ5007 emission-line compact galaxies by finding compact isolated point sources. Combined with the samples in our previous work, this returns a sample of 1830 unique strong [O III]λ5007 emission-line compact galaxies with 2033 spectra of z ≤ 0.53. For the sources with 2σ[O III]λ4363 detections, we calculate the gas-phase metallicity with the direct-T e method, and verify that the strong-line metallicity diagnostics calibrated with the direct-T e method also applies to this sample. The strong [O III]λ5007 emission-line compact galaxies fall below several T e -calibrated mass-metallicity relations. The N/O measurements of the strong [O III]λ5007 emission-line compact galaxies mainly locate at a plateau at low metallicity, indicating the product of primary nucleosynthesis. The Ne3O2 and O32 relation follows a tight linear relation with no redshift evolution. The Ne3O2 anticorrelates with the stellar mass, and at fixed stellar mass the Ne3O2 increases with the redshift. Eight sources with asymmetric [O III]λ5007 emission-line profiles have been identified, however with no [O III]λ4363 detection, which proves the rich metal content and complex ionized-gas kinematics within the galaxies. Higher-resolution spectroscopy will be necessary to identify the ionized-gas components in detail.

Keywords: compact galaxies
Self-consistent Conditions for 26Al Injection into a Protosolar Disk from a Nearby Supernova

The early solar system contained a short-lived radionuclide, 26Al (its half-life time t 1/2 = 0.7 Myr). The decay energy of 26Al is thought to have controlled the thermal evolution of planetesimals and, possibly, the water contents of planets. Many hypotheses have been proposed for the origin of 26Al in the solar system. One of the possible hypotheses is the "disk injection scenario": when the protoplanetary disk of the solar system had already formed, a nearby (<1 pc) supernova injected radioactive material directly into the disk. Such a 26Al injection hypothesis has been tested so far with limited setups for disk structure and supernova distance, which have treated disk disruption and 26Al injection separately. Here, we revisit this problem, to investigate whether there are self-consistent conditions under which the surviving disk radius can receive enough 26Al to account for the abundance in the early solar system. We also consider a range of disk masses and structures, 26Al yields from supernova, and a large dust mass fraction η d. We find that 26Al yields of supernova are required as $\gtrsim 2.1\times {10}^{-3}{M}_{\odot }{({\eta }_{{\rm{d}}}/0.2)}^{-1}$ , which are challenging to achieve with the known possible 26Al ejection and dust mass fraction ranges. Furthermore, we find that even if the above conditions are met, the supernova flow changes the disk temperature, which may not be consistent with the solar system record. Our results place a strong constraint on the disk injection scenario. Rather, we suggest that the fresh 26Al of the early solar system must have been synthesized/injected in other ways.

Keywords: protoplanetary disks; supernovae