27 research outputs found
Determination of the Local Standard of Rest using the LSS-GAC DR1
We re-estimate the peculiar velocity of the Sun with respect to the local
standard of rest using a sample of local stars within 600 pc of the Sun,
selected from the LAMOST Spectroscopic Survey of the Galactic Anti-centre
(LSS-GAC). The sample consists of 94332 FGK main-sequence stars with
well-determined radial velocities and atmospheric parameters. To derive the
LSR, two independent analyses are applied to the data. Firstly, we determine
the solar motion by comparing the observed velocity distribution to that
generated with the analytic formulism of Schonrich & Binney that has been
demonstrated to show excellent agreement with rigorous torus-based dynamics
modelling by Binney & McMillan. Secondly, we propose that cold populations of
thin disc stars, selected by applying an orbital eccentricity cut, can be
directly used to determine the LSR without the need of asymmetric drift
corrections. Both approaches yield consistent results of solar motion in the
direction of Galactic rotation, V_sun, that are much higher than the standard
value adopted hitherto, derived from Stromgren's equation. The newly deduced
values of V_sun are 1-2 km/s smaller than the more recent estimates derived
from the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey sample of stars in the solar neighbourhood
(within 100 pc). We attribute the small difference to the presence of several
well-known moving groups in the GCS sample that, fortunately, hardly affect the
LSS-GAC sample. The newly derived radial and vertical components of the solar
motion agree well with the previous studies. In addition, for all components of
the solar motion, the values yielded by stars of different spectral types in
the LSS-GAC sample are consistent with each other, suggesting that the local
disk is well relaxed and that the LSR reported in the current work is robust.
Our final recommended LSR is, (U,V,W)_sun = (7.01+/-0.20, 10.13+/-0.12,
4.95+/-0.09) km/s.Comment: MNRAS accepted, 13 pages, 11 figures, 7 table
Automated identification of 2612 late-k and M dwarfs in the LAMOST commissioining data using the classification template fits
We develop a template-fit method to automatically identify and classify
late-type K and M dwarfs in spectra from the LAMOST. A search of the
commissioning data, acquired in 2009-2010, yields the identification of 2612
late-K and M dwarfs. The template fit method also provides spectral
classification to half a subtype, classifies the stars along the dwarf-subdwarf
metallicity sequence, and provides improved metallicity/gravity information on
a finer scale. The automated search and classification is performed using a set
of cool star templates assembled from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
spectroscopic database. We show that the stars can be efficiently classified
despite shortcomings in the LAMOST commissioning data which include bright sky
lines in the red. In particular we find that the absolute and relative
strengths of the critical TiO and CaH molecular bands around 7000A are cleanly
measured, which provides accurate spectral typing from late-K to mid-M, and
makes it possible to estimate metallicities in a way that is more efficient and
reliable than with the use of spectral indices or spectral-index based
parameters such as zeta. Most of the cool dwarfs observed by LAMOST are found
to be metal-rich dwarfs. We use a calibration of spectral type to absolute
magnitude and estimate spectroscopic distances for all the stars; we also
recover proper motions from the SUPERBLINK and PPMXL catalogs. Our analysis of
the estimated transverse motions suggests a mean velocity and standard
deviation for the UVW components of velocity to be: U=-9.8 km/s; V=-22.8 km/s;
W=-7.9 km/s. The resulting values are general agreement with previous reported
results, which yields confidence in our spectral classification and
spectroscopic distance estimates, and illustrates the potential for using
LAMOST spectra of K and M dwarfs for investigating the chemo-kinematics of the
local Galactic disk and halo.Comment: 18 pages,16 figures,accepted for publication A
Chandra X-ray Analysis of Galaxy Cluster A168
We present Chandra X-ray observations of galaxy cluster A168 (z=0.045). Two
X-ray peaks with a projected distance of 676 kpc are found to be located close
to two dominant galaxies, respectively. Both peaks are significantly offset
from the peak of the number density distribution of galaxies. This suggests
that A168 consists of two subclusters, a northern subcluster (A168N) and a
southern subcluster (A168S). Further X-ray imaging analysis reveals that (1)
the X-ray isophotes surrounding the two X-ray peaks are heavily distorted, (2)
an elongated and ontinuous filament connects the two X-ray peaks. These suggest
that strong interactions have occurred between the two subclusters. Spectral
analysis shows that A168 has a mean temperature of 2.53 +/- 0.09 keV and a mean
metallicity of 0.31 +/- 0.04 Z_{solar}. The metallicity is roughly a constant
across the cluster but the temperature shows some systematic variations. Most
X-ray, optical and radio properties of A168 are consistent with it being an
off-axis merger several Gyrs after a core passage, although detailed numerical
simulations are required to see whether the observed properties, in particular
the significant offset between the optical and X-ray centers, can be reproduced
in such a scenario.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, to be published in ApJ. When this paper was
being refereed, Eric Hallman and Maxim Markevitch carried out a similar work
(astro-ph/0406322); our results are in broad agreemen
New Open Cluster Candidates Discovered in the XSTPS-GAC Survey
The Xuyi Schmidt Telescope Photometric Survey of the Galactic Anti-center
(XSTPS-GAC) is a photometric sky survey that covers nearly 6 000 deg^2 towards
Galactic anti-center in g r i bands. Half of its survey field locates on the
Galactic Anti-center disk, which makes XSTPS-GAC highly suitable for searching
new open clusters in the GAC region. In this paper, we report new open cluster
candidates discovered in this survey, as well as properties of these open
cluster candidates, such as age, distance and reddening, derived by isochrone
fitting in the color-magnitude diagram (CMD). These open cluster candidates are
stellar density peaks detected in the star density maps by applying the method
from Koposov et al. (2008). Each candidate is inspected on its true color image
composed from XSTPS-GAC three band images. Then its CMD is checked, in order to
identify whether the central region stars have a clear isochrone-like trend
differing from the background stars. The parameters derived from isochrone
fitting for these candidates are mainly based on three band photometry of
XSTPS-GAC. Meanwhile, when these new candidates are able to be seen clearly on
2MASS, their parameters are also derived based on 2MASS (J-H, J) CMD. Finally,
there are 320 known open clusters rediscovered and 24 new open cluster
candidates discovered in this work. Further more, the parameters of these new
candidates, as well as another 11 known recovered open clusters, are properly
determined for the first time.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in Research
in Astronomy and Astrophysic