4227322
The Origin of Hot Subluminous Horizontal-Branch Stars in (omega) Centauri and NGC 2808
Hot subluminous stars lying up to 0.7 mag below the extreme horizontal branch (EHB) are found in the ultraviolet color-magnitude diagrams of both omega Cen (DCruz et.al. 2000) and NGC 2808 (Brown et al. 2001). In order to investigate the origin of these subluminous stars, we have constructed a detailed set of evolutionary sequences that follow the evolution of low-mass stars continuously from the zero-age main sequence through the helium-core flash to the HB for a wide range in the mass loss along the red-giant branch (RGB). Stars with the largest mass loss evolve off the RGB to high effective temperatures before igniting helium in their cores (Castellani & Castellani 1993). Our results indicate that the location of the subluminous EHB stars, as well as the high temperature gap along the EHB of NGC 2808, can be explained if these stars undergo a late helium-core flash while descending the white-dwarf cooling curve. Under these conditions the convection zone produced by the main helium flash will penetrate into the stellar envelope, thereby mixing most, if not all, of the envelope hydrogen into the hot helium-burning interior, where it is rapidly consumed (Sweigart 1997). This phenomenon is analogous to the "born-again" scenario for producing hydrogen-deficient stars following a very late helium-shell flash. This "flash mixing" of the envelope during a late helium-core flash greatly enhances the envelope helium and carbon abundances and, as a result, leads to a discontinuous increase in the HB effective temperature. We argue that the hot HB gap observed in NGC 2808 is associated with this theoretically predicted dichotomy in the HB properties. Using new helium- and carbon-rich stellar atmospheres, we show that the changes in the envelope abundances due to flash mixing will suppress the ultraviolet flux in the spectra of hot EHB stars. We suggest that such changes in the emergent spectral energy distribution are primarily responsible for explaining the hot subluminous EHB stars in omega Cen and NGC 2808. Moreover, we demonstrate that models without flash mixing lie, at most, only approximately 0.1 mag below the EHB, and hence fail to explain the observations.
14120815
The Star Formation History in the Andromeda Halo
I present the preliminary results of a program to measure the star formation history in the halo of the Andromeda galaxy. Using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the Hubble Space Telescope, we obtained the deepest optical images of the sky to date, in a field on the southeast minor axis of Andromeda, 51 arcmin (11 kpc) from the nucleus. The resulting color-magnitude diagram (CMD) contains approximately 300,000 stars and extends more than 1.5 mag below the main sequence turnoff, with 50% completeness at V=30.7 mag. We interpret this CMD using comparisons to ACS observations of five Galactic globular clusters through the same filters, and through chi-squared fitting to a finely-spaced grid of calibrated stellar population models. We find evidence for a major (approximately 30%) intermediate-age (6-8 Gyr) metal-rich ([Fe/H] > -0.5) population in the Andromeda halo, along with a significant old metal-poor population akin to that in the Milky Way halo. The large spread in ages suggests that the Andromeda halo formed as a result of a more violent merging history than that in our own Milky Way.
119330474
100 Times Faster and 3 Times Sharper: Background-Dominated Observations of Stellar Populations with an 8-meter Optical-UV Space Telescope
An 8 m successor to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) would make incredible gains in the study of stellar populations, especially in the Local Group. If diffraction-limited at 0.5 microns, the "Next HST" could produce high-resolution imaging of faint sources over a wide field in 1 percent of the time needed with the HST. With these capabilities, photometry of the ancient main sequence could be obtained for many sight-lines through Local Group galaxies, thus determining directly the ages of their structures and providing a formation history for the Local Group populations.
35491181
A SPECTROSCOPIC SEARCH FOR LEAKING LYMAN CONTINUUM AT z ∼ 0.7*
We present the results of rest-frame, UV slitless spectroscopic observations of a sample of 32 z ~ 0.7 Lyman break galaxy (LBG) analogs in the COSMOS field. The spectroscopic search was performed with the Solar Blind Channel on the Hubble Space Telescope. We report the detection of leaking Lyman continuum (LyC) radiation from an active galactic nucleus-starburst composite. While we find no direct detections of LyC emission in the remainder of our sample, we achieve individual lower limits (3σ) of the observed non-ionizing UV-to-LyC flux density ratios, f -ν (1500 A)/f _ν(830 A) of 20 to 204 (median of 73.5) and 378.7 for the stack. Assuming an intrinsic Lyman break of 3.4 and an intergalactic medium transmission of LyC photons along the line of sight to the galaxy of 85%, we report an upper limit for the relative escape fraction in individual galaxies of 0.02-0.19 and a stacked 3σ upper limit of 0.01. We find no indication of a relative escape fraction near unity as seen in some LBGs at z ~ 3. Our UV spectra achieve the deepest limits to date at any redshift for the escape fraction in individual sources. The contrast between these z ~ 0.7 low escape fraction LBG analogs with z ~ 3 LBGs suggests that either the processes conducive to high f esc are not being selected for in the z 1 samples or the average escape fraction is decreasing from z ~ 3 to z ~ 1. We discuss possible mechanisms that could affect the escape of LyC photons
18506635
THE WFC3 GALACTIC BULGE TREASURY PROGRAM: A FIRST LOOK AT RESOLVED STELLAR POPULATION TOOLS
When the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) is installed on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the astronomical community will have access to powerful new capabilities for investigating resolved stellar populations. The WFC3 Galactic Bulge Treasury program will obtain deep imaging in five photometric bands on four low-extinction fields. These data will have no proprietary period, and will enable a variety of science investigations not possible with previous data sets. To aid in planning for the use of these data and for future observing proposals, we provide an introduction to the Treasury program, its photometric system, and the associated calibration effort. The observing strategy is based upon a new photometric system employing five WFC3 bands spanning the UV, optical, and near-infrared: F390W, F555W, F814W, F110W, and F160W (analogous but not identical to the ground-based filters Washington C, V, I, J, and H). With these bands, one can construct reddening-free indices of temperature and metallicity. Using this photometric system, the program will target six fields in well studied star clusters, spanning a wide range of metallicity, and four fields in low-extinction windows of the Galactic bulge. The cluster data serve to calibrate the reddening-free indices, provide empirical population templates, and correct the transformation of theoretical isochrone libraries into the WFC3 photometric system. The bulge data will shed light on the bulge formation history, and will also serve as empirical population templates for other studies. One of the fields includes 12 candidate hosts of extrasolar planets. Color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) are the most popular tool for analyzing resolved stellar populations. However, due to degeneracies among temperature, metallicity, and reddening in traditional CMDs, it can be difficult to draw robust conclusions from the data. The five-band system used for the bulge Treasury observations will provide reddening-free indices that are roughly orthogonal in temperature and metallicity, and we argue that model fitting in an index-index diagram will make better use of the information than fitting separate CMDs. We provide some results from simulations to show the expected quality of the data and their potential for differentiating between different star formation histories.
67759178
THE FIRST DETECTION OF BLUE STRAGGLER STARS IN THE MILKY WAY BULGE
We report the first detections of Blue Straggler Stars (BSS) in the bulge of the Milky Way. Proper motions from extensive space-based observations along a single sight line allow us to separate a sufficiently clean and well-characterized bulge sample such that we are able to detect a small population of bulge objects in the region of the color-magnitude diagram commonly occupied by young objects and blue stragglers. Variability measurements of these objects clearly establish that a fraction of them are blue stragglers. Out of the 42 objects found in this region of the color-magnitude diagram, we estimate that at least 18 are genuine BSS. We normalize the BSS population by our estimate of the number of horizontal branch stars in the bulge in order to compare the bulge to other stellar systems. The BSS fraction is clearly discrepant from that found in stellar clusters. The blue straggler population of dwarf spheroidals remains a subject of debate; some authors claim an anticorrelation between the normalized blue straggler fraction and integrated light. If this trend is real, then the bulge may extend it by three orders of magnitude in mass. Conversely, we find that the genuinely young (<5 Gyr) population in the bulge, must be at most 3.4% under the most conservative scenario for the BSS population.
118617335
PHOTOMETRIC VARIABILITY IN KEPLER TARGET STARS: THE SUN AMONG STARS—A FIRST LOOK
The Kepler mission provides an exciting opportunity to study the light curves of stars with unprecedented precision and continuity of coverage. This is the first look at a large sample of stars with photometric data of a quality that has heretofore been only available for our Sun. It provides the first opportunity to compare the irradiance variations of our Sun to a large cohort of stars ranging from very similar to rather different stellar properties, at a wide variety of ages. Although Kepler data are in an early phase of maturity, and we only analyze the first month of coverage, it is sufficient to garner the first meaningful measurements of our Sun's variability in the context of a large cohort of main-sequence stars in the solar neighborhood. We find that nearly half of the full sample is more active than the active Sun, although most of them are not more than twice as active. The active fraction is closer to a third for the stars most similar to the Sun, and rises to well more than half for stars cooler than mid-K spectral types.
121143854
CP nonconservation and rare processes in an S4 model of permutation symmetry
Abstract Further implications of a model based on permutation symmetry, that predicts 25 GeV ⩽ m t ⩽ 35 GeV and mixing angles consistent with τ B , are worked out in detail. The model is shown to be of the superweak type as far as CP violation is concerned, with δ = O and CP violation arising through flavor-changing Higgs exchange. We calculate CP and mixing parameters for K, D, B and B s systems; the electric dipole moments of different quarks and leptons; and rates for rare decays.
13379379
Far-UV Line Strengths in Elliptical Galaxies
Much of the far-UV emission from elliptical galaxies is thought to arise from extreme horizontal branch stars and related objects. Only about 10% of the stellar population needs to evolve through this phase even in galaxies with the strongest UV upturn. However it is not yet clear if this population represents the extreme low-metallicity or high-metallicty tail of the distribution, or rather arises from the overall population through some metallicity-insensitive mechanism that causes increased mass loss in a small fraction of RGB stars. We investigate the utility of far-UV line strengths for deciding between these possiblities. Complications include the fact that the line strengths reflect both the temperature distribution and the metallicity distribution of the stars, that there may be abundance anomalies introduced on the RGB, and that metals are likely to be redistributed by gravitational settling and radiative diffusion in the atmospheres of hot high-gravity stars. Line-strength measurements from Astro-2 HUT spectra are considered in this context.
11496647
A Far-Ultraviolet Analysis of the Stellar Populations in Six Elliptical and S0 Galaxies
We have analyzed the far-ultraviolet (FUV) spectra of six elliptical and S0 galaxies in order to characterize the stellar population that produces the ultraviolet flux in these galaxies. The spectra were obtained using the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT) during the Astro-2 mission aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1995 March and cover the spectral range from 820 to 1840 A with a resolution of 3 A. These data, together with the spectra of two galaxies observed with HUT on the Astro-1 mission, represent the only FUV spectra of early-type galaxies that extend to the Lyman limit at 912 A and therefore include the "turnover" in the spectral energy distribution below Lyα. Using an extensive new grid of LTE and non-LTE synthetic spectra that match the HUT resolution and cover the relevant parameter space of temperature and gravity, we have constructed synthetic spectral energy distributions by integrating over various predicted stellar evolutionary tracks for horizontal-branch stars and their progeny. When the computed models are compared with the HUT data, we find that models with supersolar metal abundances and helium best reproduce the flux across the entire HUT wavelength range, while those with subsolar Z and Y fit less well, partly because of a significant flux deficit shortward of 970 A in the models. High-Z models are preferred because the contribution from the later, hotter, post-HB evolutionary stages makes up a higher fraction of the sub-Lyα flux in these tracks. We find that AGB-Manque evolution is required in all of the fits to the HUT spectra, which suggests that all of the galaxies have some subdwarf B-star population. At any Z and Y, the model spectra that best match the HUT flux are dominated by stars evolving from a narrow range of envelope mass on the blue end of the horizontal branch. The Astro-1 and Astro-2 data are also the first with the resolution and signal-to-noise ratio needed to detect and measure absorption lines in the FUV spectra of elliptical galaxies, which allows a direct estimate of the abundances in the atmospheres of the stars that produce the UV flux. We find that most absorption features in the spectra are consistent with Z = 0.1 Z☉, significantly lower than the abundances implied by the best-fitting spectral energy distributions. However, given the strong observational and theoretical evidence for diffusion processes in the atmospheres of evolved stars, the observed atmospheric abundances may not reflect the interior abundances in the population producing the ultraviolet flux in elliptical galaxies.
119395717
Color-Luminosity Relations for the Resolved Hot Stellar Populations in the Centers of M31 and M32*
We present Faint Object Camera (FOC) ultraviolet images of the central 14'' × 14'' of Messier 31 and Messier 32. The hot stellar populations detected in the composite UV spectra of these nearby galaxies are partially resolved into individual stars, and their individual colors and apparent magnitudes are measured. We detect 433 stars in M31 and 138 stars in M32, down to detection limits mF275W = 25.5 mag and mF175W = 24.5 mag. We investigate the luminosity functions of the sources, their spatial distribution, their color-magnitude diagrams, and their total integrated far-UV flux. Comparison to IUE and Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT) spectrophotometry and WFPC2 stellar photometry indicates consistency at the 0.3 mag level, with possible systematic offsets in the FOC photometry at a level less than this. Further calibrations or observations with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) will be necessary to resolve the discrepancies. Our interpretation rests on the assumption that the published FOC on-orbit calibration is correct. Although M32 has a weaker UV upturn than M31, the luminosity functions and color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of M31 and M32 are surprisingly similar and are inconsistent with a majority contribution from any of the following: post-asymptotic giant branch (PAGB) stars more massive than 0.56 M☉ (with or without associated planetary nebulae), main sequence stars, and blue stragglers. Both the luminosity functions and color-magnitude diagrams are consistent with a dominant population of stars that have evolved from the extreme horizontal branch (EHB) along tracks with masses between 0.47 and 0.53 M☉. These stars are well below the detection limits of our images while on the zero-age EHB but become detectable while in the more luminous (but shorter) AGB-manque and post-early asymptotic giant branch (PEAGB) phases. The FOC observations require that only very small fractions of the main-sequence populations (2% in M31 and 0.5% in M32) in these two galaxies evolve though the EHB and post-EHB phases, with the remainder evolving through bright PAGB evolution that is so rapid that few if any stars are expected in the small field of view covered by the FOC. A model with a flat EHB star mass distribution reproduces the HUT and IUE spectra of these two galaxies reasonably well, although there is some indication that an additional population of very hot (Teff > 25,000 K) EHB stars may be needed to reproduce the HUT spectrum of M31 near the Lyman limit and to bring integrated far-UV fluxes of M31 and M32 into agreement with IUE. In addition to the post-EHB population detected in the FOC, we find a minority population (~10%) of brighter stars that populate a region of the CMD that cannot be explained by canonical post-HB evolutionary tracks. The nature of these stars remains open to interpretation. The spatial distributions of the resolved UV-bright stars in both galaxies are more centrally concentrated than the underlying diffuse emission, implying that stellar populations of different ages and/or metallicities might be responsible for each component.