37 research outputs found
Discovery of the spectroscopic binary nature of six southern Cepheids
We present the analysis of photometric and spectroscopic data of six bright
Galactic Cepheids: GH Carinae, V419 Centauri, V898 Centauri, AD Puppis, AY
Sagittarii, and ST Velorum. Based on new radial velocity data (in some cases
supplemented with earlier data available in the literature), these Cepheids
have been found to be members in spectroscopic binary systems. V898 Cen turned
out to have one of the largest orbital radial velocity amplitude (> 40 km/s)
among the known binary Cepheids. The data are insufficient to determine the
orbital periods nor other orbital elements for these new spectroscopic
binaries.
These discoveries corroborate the statement on the high frequency of
occurrence of binaries among the classical Cepheids, a fact to be taken into
account when calibrating the period-luminosity relationship for Cepheids.
We have also compiled all available photometric data that revealed that the
pulsation period of AD Pup, the longest period Cepheid in this sample, is
continuously increasing with Delta P = 0.004567 d/century, likely to be caused
by stellar evolution. The wave-like pattern superimposed on the parabolic O-C
graph of AD Pup may well be caused by the light-time effect in the binary
system. ST Vel also pulsates with a continuously increasing period. The other
four Cepheids are characterised with stable pulsation periods in the last half
century.Comment: accepted by the MNRAS, 11 pages, 16 figures, 18 tables, a part of the
data can be downloaded from the online version of this articl
Identification of Young Stellar Object candidates in the DR2 x AllWISE catalogue with machine learning methods
The second Data Release (DR2) contains astrometric and photometric
data for more than 1.6 billion objects with mean magnitude 20.7,
including many Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) in different evolutionary stages.
In order to explore the YSO population of the Milky Way, we combined the
DR2 database with WISE and Planck measurements and made an all-sky
probabilistic catalogue of YSOs using machine learning techniques, such as
Support Vector Machines, Random Forests, or Neural Networks. Our input
catalogue contains 103 million objects from the DR2xAllWISE cross-match table.
We classified each object into four main classes: YSOs, extragalactic objects,
main-sequence stars and evolved stars. At a 90% probability threshold we
identified 1,129,295 YSO candidates. To demonstrate the quality and potential
of our YSO catalogue, here we present two applications of it. (1) We explore
the 3D structure of the Orion A star forming complex and show that the spatial
distribution of the YSOs classified by our procedure is in agreement with
recent results from the literature. (2) We use our catalogue to classify
published Science Alerts. As measures the sources at multiple
epochs, it can efficiently discover transient events, including sudden
brightness changes of YSOs caused by dynamic processes of their circumstellar
disk. However, in many cases the physical nature of the published alert sources
are not known. A cross-check with our new catalogue shows that about 30% more
of the published alerts can most likely be attributed to YSO activity.
The catalogue can be also useful to identify YSOs among future alerts.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, 3 table
Study of changes in the pulsation period of 148 Galactic Cepheid variables
Investigating period changes of classical Cepheids through the framework of O - C diagrams provides a unique insight to the evolution and nature of these variable stars. In this work, the new or extended O - C diagrams for 148 Galactic classical Cepheids are presented. By correlating the calculated period change rates with the Gaia EDR3 colours, we obtain observational indications for the non-negligible dependence of the period change rate on the horizontal position within the instability strip. We find period fluctuations in 59 Cepheids with a confidence level of 99 per cent, which are distributed uniformly over the inspected period range. Correlating the fluctuation amplitude with the pulsation period yields a clear dependence, similar to the one valid for longer period pulsating variable stars. The non-negligible amount of Cepheids showing changes in their O - C diagrams that are not or not only of evolutionary origin points towards the need for further studies for the complete understanding of these effects. One such peculiar behaviour is the large amplitude period fluctuation in short period Cepheids, which occurs in a significant fraction of the investigated stars. The period dependence of the fluctuation strength and its minimum at the bump Cepheid region suggests a stability enhancing mechanism for this period range, which agrees with current pulsation models
Cross-tolerance to abiotic stresses in halophytes: Application for phytoremediation of organic pollutants
International audienceHalopytes are plants able to tolerate high salt concentrations but no clear definition was retained for them. In literature, there are more studies that showed salt-enhanced tolerance to other abiotic stresses compared to investigations that found enhanced salt tolerance by other abiotic stresses in halophytes. The phenomenon by which a plant resistance to a stress induces resistance to another is referred to as cross-tolerance. In this work, we reviewed cross-tolerance in halophytes at the physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels. A special attention was accorded to the cross-tolerance between salinity and organic pollutants that could allow halophytes a higher potential of xenobiotic phytoremediation in comparison with glycophytes