No Arabic abstract
The observable spectrum of an unresolved binary star system is a superposition of two single-star spectra. Even without a detectable velocity offset between the two stellar components, the combined spectrum of a binary system is in general different from that of either component, and fitting it with single-star models may yield inaccurate stellar parameters and abundances. We perform simple experiments with synthetic spectra to investigate the effect of unresolved main-sequence binaries on spectral fitting, modeling spectra similar to those collected by the APOGEE, GALAH, and LAMOST surveys. We find that fitting unresolved binaries with single-star models introduces systematic biases in the derived stellar parameters and abundances that are modest but certainly not negligible, with typical systematic errors of $300,rm K$ in $T_{rm eff}$, 0.1 dex in $log g$, and 0.1 dex in $[rm Fe/H]$ for APOGEE-like spectra of solar-type stars. These biases are smaller for spectra at optical wavelengths than in the near-infrared. We show that biases can be corrected by fitting spectra with a binary model, which adds only two labels to the fit and includes single-star models as a special case. Our model provides a promising new method to constrain the Galactic binary population, including systems with single-epoch spectra and no detectable velocity offset between the two stars.
The X-shooter Spectral Library (XSL) is an empirical stellar library at medium spectral resolution covering the wavelength range from 3000 AA to 24 800 AA. This library aims to provide a benchmark for stellar population studies. In this work, we present a uniform set of stellar atmospheric parameters, effective temperatures, surface gravities, and iron abundances for 754 spectra of 616 XSL stars. We used the full-spectrum fitting package ULySS with the empirical MILES library as reference to fit the ultraviolet-blue (UVB) and visible (VIS) spectra. We tested the internal consistency and we compared our results with compilations from the literature. The stars cover a range of effective temperature 2900 < Teff < 38 000 K, surface gravity 0 < log g < 5.7, and iron abundance -2.5 < [Fe/H] < +1.0, with a couple of stars extending down to [Fe/H] = -3.9. The precisions of the measurements for the G- and K-type stars are 0.9%, 0.14, and 0.06 in Teff, log g, and [Fe/H], respectively. For the cool giants with log g < 1, the precisions are 2.1%, 0.21, and 0.22, and for the other cool stars these values are 1%, 0.14, and 0.10. For the hotter stars (Teff > 6500 K), these values are 2.6%, 0.20, and 0.10 for the three parameters.
Empirical stellar spectral libraries have applications in both extragalactic and stellar studies, and they have an advantage over theoretical libraries because they naturally include all relevant chemical species and physical processes. During recent years we see a stream of new high quality sets of spectra, but increasing the spectral resolution and widening the wavelength coverage means resorting to multi-order echelle spectrographs. Assembling the spectra from many pieces results in lower fidelity of their shapes. We aim to offer the community a library of high signal-to-noise spectra with reliable continuum shapes. Furthermore, the using an integral field unit (IFU) alleviates the issue of slit losses. Our library was build with the MUSE (Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer) IFU instrument. We obtained spectra over nearly the entire visual band (lambda~4800-9300 Ang). We assembled a library of 35 high-quality MUSE spectra for a subset of the stars from the X-shooter Spectral Library. We verified the continuum shape of these spectra with synthetic broad band colors derived from the spectra. We also report some spectral indices from the Lick system, derived from the new observations. We offer a high-fidelity set of stellar spectra that covers the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. It can be useful for both extragalactic and stellar work and demonstrates that the IFUs are excellent tools for building reliable spectral libraries.
We present a survey for the tightest visual binaries among 0.3-2 Msun members the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC). Among 42 targets, we discovered 13 new 0.025-0.15 companions. Accounting for the Branch bias, we find a companion star fraction (CSF) in the 10-60 au range of 21+8/-5%, consistent with that observed in other star-forming regions (SFRs) and twice as high as among field stars; this excess is found with a high level of confidence. Since our sample is dominated by disk-bearing targets, this indicates that disk disruption by close binaries is inefficient, or has not yet taken place, in the ONC. The resulting separation distribution in the ONC drops sharply outside 60,au. These findings are consistent with a scenario in which the initial multiplicity properties, set by the star formation process itself, are identical in the ONC and in other SFRs and subsequently altered by the clusters dynamical evolution. This implies that the fragmentation process does not depend on the global properties of a molecular cloud, but on the local properties of prestellar cores, and that the latter are self-regulated to be nearly identical in a wide range of environments. These results, however, raise anew the question of the origin of field stars as the tight binaries we have discovered will not be destroyed as the ONC dissolves into the galactic field. It thus appears that most field stars formed in regions differ from well-studied SFRs in the Solar neighborhood, possibly due to changes in core fragmentation on Gyr timescales.
Type Ibn supernovae (SNe Ibn) are intriguing stellar explosions whose spectra exhibit narrow helium lines with little hydrogen. They trace the presence of circumstellar material (CSM) formed via pre-SN eruptions of their stripped-envelope progenitors. Early work has generally assumed that SNe Ibn come from massive Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars via single star evolution. In this paper, we report ultraviolet (UV) and optical observations of two nearby Type Ibn SNe 2006jc and 2015G conducted with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) at late times. A point source is detected at the position of SN 2006jc, and we confirm the conclusion of Maund et al. that it is the progenitors binary companion. Its position on the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram corresponds to a star that has evolved off the main sequence (MS); further analysis implies a low initial mass for the companion star ($M_2$ $le$ 11.9$^{+1.2}_{-0.8}$ $M_odot$) and a secondary-to-primary initial mass ratio very close to unity ($q$ = $M_2/M_1$ $sim$ 1); the SN progenitors hydrogen envelope had been stripped through binary interaction. We do not detect the binary companion of SN 2015G. For both SNe, the surrounding stellar populations have relatively old ages and argue against any massive WR stars as their progenitors. These results suggest that SNe Ibn may have lower-mass origins in interacting binaries. As a result, they also provide evidence that the giant eruptions commonly seen in massive luminous blue variables (LBVs) can also occur in much lower-mass, stripped-envelope stars just before core collapse.
We study the prospects of searching for black hole (BH) binary systems with a stellar-mass BH and a non-compact visible companion, by utilizing the spectroscopic data of Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST). We simulate the Galactic BH binary population and determine its optical visibility by considering the stellar synthetic population model and the distributions of binary orbital parameters. By convolving the visibility of BH binaries with the LAMOST detection sensitivity, we predict that $gtrsim$ 400 candidate BH binaries can be found by the low-resolution, non-time-domain survey, and $sim$ 50-350 candidates by the LAMOST ongoing medium-resolution, time-domain spectroscopic survey. Most of the candidates are short-period (0.2-2 days) binaries with M-, K-, G-, or F-type companions, in which $sim$ 47% have a mass function (the lower limit of the BH mass) larger than 3 $M_{odot}$. By complementing the LAMOST spectroscopic data with other photometric/spectroscopic surveys or follow-up observations, these candidates could be confirmed. Therefore, by exploring the LAMOST data, we can enlarge the sample of dynamically confirmed BH binaries significantly, which can improve our understanding of the mass distribution of BHs and the stellar evolution model.