Contribution to the search for binaries among Am stars - VIII. New spectroscopic orbits of eight systems and statistical study of a sample of 91 Am stars

International audienceThis paper is the last of a series devoted to the study of Am stars, with the monitoring of radial velocities of a sample of 91 objects during more than 20 yr. The purpose was to determine which stars were members of spectroscopic binaries (SBs) and study in detail those systems in order to obtain observational constraints on the origin of the Am phenomenon. In the first part, we present the results of a detailed study of eight Am stars (HD 32893, 60489, 109762, 111057, 113697, 204918, 219675 and BD+44° 4512) observed at the Haute-Provence and Cambridge observatories with CORAVEL instruments. We find that these objects are single-lined SBs whose orbital elements are determined for the first time. HD 32893 is found to be a triple spectroscopic system whose third body might be detected by speckle interferometry. Physical parameters are inferred for the primaries of those SBs. We then investigate the influence of tidal interaction and find that it has already led to the synchronism of the primaries and to the circularization of the orbits of four of those systems. In the second part of this paper, we present the main results of our whole programme and derive some statistical properties of Am stars. We give the recapitulating table of the orbital parameters found for the SBs of our whole sample and the list of those for which no evidence for radial velocity variations could be found during our monitoring. Our study shows that at least 64 per cent of Am stars are members of SBs. This rate is significantly greater than that of normal stars. Although some SBs may have been not detected, this study shows that a substantial fraction of Am stars do not belong to SBs: they are either isolated stars or members of wide binary systems. We then present some statistical properties of the orbital parameters of the SBs whose primary is an Am star, on an extended sample obtained by adding 29 Am SB orbits published by other authors. The corresponding e versus logP diagram shows a cut-off between the circular and the eccentric systems at P ~ 5.6 +/- 0.5 d, which indicates a typical age of 0.5 - 1 × 109 yr for the Am stars, which is in agreement with the values found in our previous detailed studies. A Monte Carlo analysis shows that the distribution of the mass function values f(m) is compatible with a power-law distribution N(m) ~ m-? of the masses m of the companions with ? = 0.3 +/- 0.2 or with a Gaussian distribution centred on 0.8 +/- 0.5Msolar, which indicates that the companions of Am SBs are mostly dwarf stars of type G-K-M

Ultrasonic triggering of giant magnetocaloric effect in MnAs thin films

Mechanical control of magnetic properties in magnetostrictive thin films offers the unexplored opportunity to employ surface wave acoustics in such a way that acoustic triggers dynamic magnetic effects. The strain-induced modulation of the magnetic anisotropy can play the role of a high frequency varying effective magnetic field leading to ultrasonic tuning of electronic and magnetic properties of nanostructured materials, eventually integrated in semiconductor technology. Here, we report about the opportunity to employ surface acoustic waves to trigger magnetocaloric effect in MnAs(100nm)/GaAs(001) thin films. During the MnAs magnetostructural phase transition, in an interval range around room temperature (0{\deg}C - 60{\deg}C), ultrasonic waves (170 MHz) are strongly attenuated by the phase coexistence (up to 150 dB/cm). We show that the giant magnetocaloric effect of MnAs is responsible of the observed phenomenon. By a simple anelastic model we describe the temperature and the external magnetic field dependence of such a huge ultrasound attenuation. Strain-manipulation of the magnetocaloric effect could be a further interesting route for dynamic and static caloritronics and spintronics applications in semiconductor technology

Contribution to the search for binaries among Am stars - VII. Orbital elements of seven new spectroscopic binaries, implications on tidal effects

International audienceWe present the results of a radial-velocity study of seven Am stars (HD 3970, 35035, 93946, 151746, 153286, 204751 and 224002) observed at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP) and the Cambridge Observatories with CORAVEL instruments. We find that these systems are single-lined spectroscopic binaries whose orbital elements are determined for the first time. Among this sample, HD 35035 and 153286 have long periods, with P = 2.8 and 9.5yr, respectively, which is rather unusual for Am stars. Four systems have orbits with large eccentricities (with e >= 0.4). Physical parameters are inferred from this study for the primaries of those systems. We then investigate the influence of tidal interaction, which has already led to the synchronism of the primaries and/or to the circularization of the orbits of some systems belonging to this sample. We extend this study to the list of 33 objects studied in this series of papers and derive values of the critical fractional radii r = R/a for circularization and synchronization of Am-type binaries. We find that the stars with r >~ 0.15 are orbiting on circular orbits and that synchronism is likely for all components with r >~ 0.20

Short-scale temporal variability of physical, biological and biogeochemical processes in the NW Mediterranean Sea: an introduction

International audienceIn the framework of the PROOF-PECHE project (http://www.obs-vlfr.fr/proof/vt/op/ec/peche/pec.htm) a multidisciplinary team performed experiments and collected samples during the DYNAPROC2 cruise aboard the RV Thalassa from September to October in 2004. The cruise provided data on the functioning of the pelagic food web by sampling over a month long period in the NW Mediterranean Sea at a fixed station subject to weak horizontal advection currents during a period of hydrological stability. This paper describes the background of the cruise and provides an overview of the results derived from the campaign which constitute the special section. The major objective of the cruise was to assess the relative importance and variability of the pathways of carbon in the open ocean. Intensive sampling through 4 periods of 5 days each was accomplished at a site near the DYFAMED time-series site. The site was near stable in terms of hydrodynamics as there was some evidence of an intrusion of low-salinity coastal water. The cruise yielded a comprehensive data set acquired by sampling over a vertical spatial dimension (0–1000 m) and at high frequencies (ranging from every 3, 6, 12 and/or 24 h), unique for the summer to autumn transition in the North Western Mediterranean. Parameters investigated included the biochemical composition of dissolved organic matter (lipids), and the structure of bacterial communities, phytoplankton and zooplankton community compositions and abundances, as well as zooplankton metabolism, and particulate organic carbon fluxes. Nearly all the parameters described in this section, as well as reports appearing elsewhere, showed time-course variabilities of Correspondence to: J. R. Dolan ([email protected]) similar magnitude to those known from a previous study of the spring-summer seasonal transition, a period of marked hydrological change, at the same study site. Remarkably, the least variable characteristic of the system appeared to be the identities of the dominant taxa across several trophic levels (copepods, phytoplankton, ciliates, and bacteria) throughout the study period despite large shifts in stock sizes and fluxes. Thus, the studies of DYNAPROC 2 documented considerable temporal variability of stocks and rates in a system which was, from a hydrological and taxonomic point of view, relatively stable

Contribution to the search for binaries among Am stars - III. HD 7119: a double-lined spectroscopic binary and a triple system

Radial velocity observations of HD 7119 with the CORAVEL instrument at Observatoire de Haute-Provence are reported. Known as an Amδδ Del metallic-line star, HD 7119 was included in our spectroscopic survey of Am-type stars, the purpose of which was to determine the frequency of binaries in this stellar family. This object is found to be a double-lined spectroscopic binary with a variable value of V0, the systematic velocity of the centre of gravity of the pair. The variation of this parameter is interpreted in terms of the orbital motion of an unseen third body with a much longer period. The orbital elements were derived for both the short- and the long-period orbits. These orbits can be considered to be well determined since these observations were performed on a regular basis over the 1992-1998 period, covering more than 320 orbital cycles for the short-period (P= 6.76 d) and 1.3 cycle for the long-period orbit (P∼ 1700 d). As deduced from the ratio of the correlation dip areas, the magnitude difference of the components of the short-period system is 0.7 mag. Combined with the Hipparcos data, this value leads to visual absolute magnitudes of 0.5 and 1.2 for the primary and secondary components, respectively. Such magnitudes are consistent with evolved δ Del-type stars. The third body could be a cool dwarf star with a minimum mass of 0.5 M⊙, located at ∼ 0.016 arcsec of the main system. Consequently, it cannot be the visual companion detected by Couteau with a separation of 3.35 arcsec. If this latter visual component were a physical component (rather than an optical one), HD 7119 would be a quadruple syste

Contribution to the search for binaries among Am stars — V. Orbital elements of eight short-period spectroscopic binaries

We present the results of a radial-velocity study of eight Am stars (HD 341, 55822, 61250, 67317, 93991, 162950, 224890 and 225137) observed at Observatoire de Haute-Provence with the CORAVEL instrument. We find that these systems are single-line spectroscopic binaries whose orbital elements are determined for the first tim

Preliminary orbital elements of six visual binary stars

International audiencePreliminary new orbital elements were computed for the visual binary stars A 1 - ADS 1345, A 2629 - ADS 3610, BU 560 - ADS 4371, STF 3115 - ADS 4376, STF 1426 AB - ADS 7730 and STF 2437 - ADS 11956. Using Straizys and Kuriliene's data, we derived new formulae for computing dynamical parallaxes for luminosity classes IV and V. The values found for those systems are in agreement with the {Hipparcos} parallaxes and the corresponding systemic masses are consistent with the spectral types