Neon abundances in mercury-manganese stars: Radiative accelerators and non-LTE calculations

We make new non-local thermodynamic equilibrium calculations to deduce the abundances of neon from visible-region echelle spectra of selected Ne i lines in seven normal stars and 20 HgMn stars. We find that the best strong blend-free Ne line that can be used at the lower end of the effective temperature Teff range is λ6402, although several other potentially useful Ne i lines are found in the red region of the spectra of these stars. The mean neon abundance in the normal stars (log A=8.10) is in excellent agreement with the standard abundance of neon (8.08). However, in HgMn stars neon is almost universally underabundant, ranging from marginal deficits of 0.1–0.3 dex to underabundances of an order of magnitude or more. In many cases, the lines are so weak that only upper limits can be established. The most extreme example found is υ Her with an underabundance of at least 1.5 dex. These underabundances are qualitatively expected from radiative acceleration calculations, which show that Ne has a very small radiative acceleration in the photosphere, and that it is expected to undergo gravitational settling if the mixing processes are sufficiently weak and there is no strong stellar wind. According to theoretical predictions, the low Ne abundances place an important constraint on the intensity of such stellar winds, which must be less than 10−14 M⊙ yr−1 if they are non-turbulent

Radiative accelerations on Ne in the atmospheres of late B stars

Radiative accelerations on Ne are calculated for the atmospheres of main sequence stars with 11000 < Teff < 15000 K, corresponding to the range of the HgMn stars. The calculations take into account neon fine structure as well as shadowing of neon lines using the entire Kurucz line list, bound-bound, bound-free, and free-free opacity of H, He, and C as well as some NLTE effects. NLTE effects modify the radiative acceleration by a factor of order 100 in the outer atmosphere. The dependence of the radiative acelerations on the Ne abundance, Teff, and gravity is studied. Radiative accelerations are well below gravity in the entire range of Teff and it is predicted that in stable atmospheres Ne should sink and be observed as underabundant. This agrees with recent observations of low Ne abundances in HgMn stars.Comment: Accepted by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2002 August 21. 10 pages, 9 Postscript figures (needed new version due to error in the listed originally-received date; corrected typo in author line)

The helium abundances in HgMn and normal stars

The parameter-free model of diffusion in the atmospheres of HgMn stars (Michaud 1986; Michaud et al 1979) predicts that helium should sink below the He II ionization zone in order that diffusion of other elements may take place, and that all HgMn stars should have deficits of helium in their photospheres, with a minimum deficit of 0.3 dex. In this study, the Smith & Dworetsky (1993) sample of HgMn stars and normal comparison stars is examined, and the helium abundances determined by spectrum synthesis using echelle spectra taken at Lick Observatory and the AAT. The prediction is confirmed; all HgMn stars are deficient in He by as much as 1.5 dex. Also, two HgMn stars, HR7361 and HR7664, show clear evidence of helium stratification.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, (poster paper at IAU Symposium 224, The A-Star Puzzle, 7-13 July 2004, Poprad, Slovakia

No periodicity revealed for an "eclipsing" ultraluminous supersoft X-ray source in M81

Luminous supersoft X-ray sources found in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds are likely white dwarfs that steadily or cyclically burn accreted matter on their surface, which are promising type Ia supernova progenitors. Observations of distant galaxies with Chandra and XMM-Newton have revealed supersoft sources that are generally hotter and more luminous, including some ultraluminous supersoft sources (ULSs) that are possibly intermediate mass black holes of a few thousand solar masses. In this paper we report our X-ray spectral and timing analysis for M81-ULS1, an ultraluminous supersoft source in the nearby spiral galaxy M81. M81-ULS1 has been persistently supersoft in 17 Chandra ACIS observations spanning six years, and its spectrum can be described by either a $kT_{bb}\approx70$ eV blackbody for a $\sim1.2M_\odot$ white dwarf, or a $kT_{in} \approx 80$ eV multicolor accretion disk for a $\gtrsim10^3M_\odot$ intermediate mass black hole. In two observations, the light curves exhibited dramatic flux drop/rise on time scales of $10^3$ seconds, reminiscent of eclipse ingress/egress in eclipsing X-ray binaries. However, the exhaustive search for periodicity in the reasonable range of 50 ksec to 50 days failed to reveal an orbital period. The failure to reveal any periodicity is consistent with the long period ($\ge30$ yrs) predicted for this system given the optical identification of the secondary with an asymptotic giant star. Also, the eclipse-like dramatic flux changes in hours are hard to explain under the white dwarf model, but can in principle be explained by disk temperature changes induced by accretion rate variations under the intermediate mass black hole model.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, to appear in ApJ

Manganese abundances in mercury-manganese stars

We use exact curve-of-growth analysis and spectral synthesis to deduce the abundance of Mn from high signal-to-noise ratio visible-region echelle spectra of selected Mn i and MnII lines in 24 HgMn stars. The results are compared with the Mn abundances derived from UV resonance lines by Smith & Dworetsky. We find excellent agreement for several unblended Mn lines and confirm the temperature dependence of the Mn abundance found by Smith & Dworetsky. The MnII lines at λλ 4206 and 4326 are much stronger than one would predict from the mean Mn abundances. The lack of agreement is greatest for stars with the strongest MnII lines. Using ad hoc multicomponent fits to the profiles of sharp-lined stars, we show that most of the discrepancies can be explained by hyperfine structure that desaturates the lines, with full widths of the order of 0.06--0.09 Å

Failure of the adiabatic criterion, structure and coherence in the low energy excitation of helium atoms by helium ions

Producing optical excitations by low energy ion atom and ion molecule collision

Neon abundances in normal late-B and mercury-manganese stars

We make new Non-LTE calculations to deduce abundances of neon from visible-region echelle spectra of selected Ne I lines in 7 normal stars and 20 HgMn stars. We find that the best strong blend-free Ne line which can be used at the lower end of the Teff range is 6402 A, although several other potentially useful Ne I lines are found in the red region of the spectra of these stars. The mean neon abundance in the normal stars (log A =8.10) is in excellent agreement with the standard abundance of neon (8.08). However, in HgMn stars, neon is almost universally underabundant, ranging from marginal deficits of 0.1-0.3 dex to underabundances of an order of magnitude or more. In many cases, the lines are so weak that only upper limits can be established. The most extreme example found is upsilon Her with an underabundance of at least 1.5 dex. These underabundances are qualitatively expected from radiative acceleration calculations, which show that Ne has a very small radiative acceleration in the photosphere and is expected to undergo gravitational settling if mixing processes are sufficiently weak, and there is no strong stellar wind. According to the theoretical predictions of Landstreet et al. (1998), the low Ne abundances place an important constraint on the intensity of such stellar winds, which must be less than $10^-14 M_sun per yr if they are non-turbulent.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, received 23 June 2000, accepted 4 August 2000, by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Dwarf Cepheids in the Carina Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy

We have discovered 20 dwarf Cepheids (DC) in the Carina dSph galaxy from the analysis of individual CCD images obtained for a deep photometric study of the system. These short-period pulsating variable stars are by far the most distant (~100 kpc) and faintest (V ~ 23.0) DCs known. The Carina DCs obey a well-defined period-luminosity relation, allowing us to readily distinguish between overtone and fundamental pulsators in nearly every case. Unlike RR Lyr stars, the pulsation mode turns out to be uncorrelated with light-curve shape, nor do the overtone pulsators tend towards shorter periods compared to the fundamental pulsators. Using the period-luminosity (PL) relations from Nemec et al. (1994 AJ, 108, 222) and McNamara (1995, AJ, 109, 1751), we derive (m-M)_0 = 20.06 +/- 0.12, for E(B-V) = 0.025 and [Fe/H] = -2.0, in good agreement with recent, independent estimates of the distance/reddening of Carina. The error reflects the uncertainties in the DC distance scale, and in the metallicity and reddening of Carina. The frequency of DCs among upper main sequence stars in Carina is approximately 3%. The ratio of dwarf Cepheids to RR Lyr stars in Carina is 0.13 +/- 0.10, though this result is highly sensitive to the star-formation history of Carina and the evolution of the Horizontal Branch. We discuss how DCs may be useful to search effectively for substructure in the Galactic halo out to Galactocentric distances of ~100 kpc.Comment: 20 pages of text, 7 figure

Discovery of a compact companion to the hot subdwarf star BD+37 442

We report the results of the first X-ray observation of the luminous and helium-rich O-type subdwarf BD+37 442, carried out with the XMM-Newton satellite in August 2011. X-ray emission is detected with a flux of about 3x10^(-14) erg/cm2/s (0.2-1 keV) and a very soft spectrum, well fit by the sum of a blackbody with temperature kT_BB = 45^(+11)_(-9) eV and a power law with a poorly constrained photon index. Significant pulsations with a period of 19.2 s are detected, indicating that the X-ray emission originates in a white dwarf or neutron star companion, most likely powered by accretion from the wind of BD+37 442.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication by The Astrophysical Journal Letter