Synthetic horizontal branch morphology for different metallicities and ages under tidally enhanced stellar wind

It is believed that, except for metallicity, some other parameters are needed to explain the horizontal branch (HB) morphology of globular clusters (GCs). Furthermore, these parameters are considered to be correlated with the mass loss of the red giant branch (RGB) stars. In our previous work, we proposed that tidally enhanced stellar wind during binary evolution may affect the HB morphology by enhancing the mass loss of the red giant primary. As a further study, we now investigate the effects of metallicity and age on HB morphology by considering tidally enhanced stellar winds during binary evolution. We incorporated the tidally enhanced-stellar-wind model into Eggleton's stellar evolution code to study the binary evolution. To study the effects of metallicity and age on our final results, we conducted two sets of model calculations: (i) for a fixed age, we used three metallicities, namely Z=0.0001, 0.001, and 0.02. (ii) For a fixed metallicity, Z=0.001, we used five ages in our model calculations: 14, 13, 12, 10, and 7 Gyr. We found that HB morphology of GCs becomes bluer with decreasing metallicity, and old GCs present bluer HB morphology than young ones. These results are consistent with previous work. Although the envelope-mass distributions of zero-age HB stars produced by tidally enhanced stellar wind are similar for different metallicities, the synthetic HB under tidally enhanced stellar wind for Z=0.02 presented a distinct gap between red and blue HB. However, this feature was not seen clearly in the synthetic HB for Z=0.001 and 0.0001. We also found that higher binary fractions may make HB morphology become bluer, and we discussed the results with recent observations.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Binary Stellar Population Synthesis Model

Using Yunnan evolutionary population synthesis (EPS) models, we present integrated colours, integrated spectral energy distributions (ISEDs) and absorption-line indices defined by the Lick Observatory image dissector scanner (Lick/IDS) system, for an extensive set of instantaneous-burst binary stellar populations (BSPs) with interactions. By comparing the results for populations with and without interactions we show that the inclusion of binary interactions makes the appearance of the population substantially bluer. This effect raises the derived age and metallicity of the population. To be used in the studies of modern spectroscopic galaxy surveys at intermediate/high spectral resolution, we also present intermediate- (3A) and high-resolution (~0.3A) ISEDs and Lick/IDS absorption-line indices for BSPs. To directly compare with observations the Lick/IDS absorption indices are also presented by measuring them directly from the ISEDs.Comment: 2 pages 2 figure

Evolution of binary stars and its implications for evolutionary population synthesis

Most stars are members of binaries, and the evolution of a star in a close binary system differs from that of an ioslated star due to the proximity of its companion star. The components in a binary system interact in many ways and binary evolution leads to the formation of many peculiar stars, including blue stragglers and hot subdwarfs. We will discuss binary evolution and the formation of blue stragglers and hot subdwarfs, and show that those hot objects are important in the study of evolutionary population synthesis (EPS), and conclude that binary interactions should be included in the study of EPS. Indeed, binary interactions make a stellar population younger (hotter), and the far-ultraviolet (UV) excess in elliptical galaxies is shown to be most likely resulted from binary interactions. This has major implications for understanding the evolution of the far-UV excess and elliptical galaxies in general. In particular, it implies that the far-UV excess is not a sign of age, as had been postulated prviously and predicts that it should not be strongly dependent on the metallicity of the population, but exists universally from dwarf ellipticals to giant ellipticals.Comment: Oral talk on IAUS 262, Brazi

The Effect of Binary Interactions in Infrared Passbands

We present the integrated J, H, K, L, M and N magnitudes and the colours involving infrared bands, for an extensive set of instantaneous-burst binary stellar populations (BSPs) by using evolutionary population synthesis (EPS). By comparing the results for BSPs WITH and WITHOUT binary interactions we show that the inclusion of binary interactions makes the magnitudes of populations larger (fainter) and the integrated colours smaller (bluer) for t > 1Gyr. Also, we compare our model magnitudes and colours with those of Bruzual & Charlot (2003, hereafter BC03) and Maraston (2005, hereafter M05). At last, we compare these model broad colours with Magellanic Clouds globular clusters (GCs) and Milky Way GCs. In (V-R)-[Fe/H] and (V-I)-[Fe/H] diagrams it seems that our models match the observations better than those of BC03 and M05.Comment: 2 page 3 figure

Constraints on SN Ia progenitor time delays from high-z SNe and the star formation history

We re-assess the question of a systematic time delay between the formation of the progenitor and its explosion in a type Ia supernova (SN Ia) using the Hubble Higher-z Supernova Search sample (Strolger et al. 2004). While the previous analysis indicated a significant time delay, with a most likely value of 3.4 Gyr, effectively ruling out all previously proposed progenitor models, our analysis shows that the time-delay estimate is dominated by systematic errors, in particular due to uncertainties in the star-formation history. We find that none of the popular progenitor models under consideration can be ruled out with any significant degree of confidence. The inferred time delay is mainly determined by the peak in the assumed star-formation history. We show that, even with a much larger Supernova sample, the time delay distribution cannot be reliably reconstructed without better constraints on the star-formation history.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA

Binary interactions and UV photometry on photometric redshift

Using the Hyperz code (Bolzonella et al. 2000) we present photometric redshift estimates for a random sample of galaxies selected from the SDSS/DR7 and GALEX/DR4, for which spectroscopic redshifts are also available. We confirm that the inclusion of ultraviolet photometry improves the accuracy of photo-zs for those galaxies with g*-r* < 0.7 and z_spec < 0.2. We also address the problem of how binary interactions can affect photo-z estimates, and find that their effect is negligible.Comment: 2 pages 1 figure

Birthrates and delay times of Type Ia supernovae

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) play an important role in diverse areas of astrophysics, from the chemical evolution of galaxies to observational cosmology. However, the nature of the progenitors of SNe Ia is still unclear. In this paper, according to a detailed binary population synthesis study, we obtained SN Ia birthrates and delay times from different progenitor models, and compared them with observations. We find that the Galactic SN Ia birthrate from the double-degenerate (DD) model is close to those inferred from observations, while the birthrate from the single-degenerate (SD) model accounts for only about 1/2-2/3 of the observations. If a single starburst is assumed, the distribution of the delay times of SNe Ia from the SD model is a weak bimodality, where the WD + He channel contributes to the SNe Ia with delay times shorter than 100Myr, and the WD + MS and WD + RG channels to those with age longer than 1Gyr.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, accepted by Science in China Series G (Dec.30, 2009

Stellar adiabatic mass loss model and applications

Roche-lobe overflow and common envelope evolution are very important in binary evolution, which is believed to be the main evolutionary channel to hot subdwarf stars. The details of these processes are difficult to model, but adiabatic expansion provides an excellent approximation to the structure of a donor star undergoing dynamical time scale mass transfer. We can use this model to study the responses of stars of various masses and evolutionary stages as potential donor stars, with the urgent goal of obtaining more accurate stability criteria for dynamical mass transfer in binary population synthesis studies. As examples, we describe here several models with the initial masses equal to 1 Msun and 10 Msun, and identify potential limitations to the use of our results for giant-branch stars.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures,Accepted for publication in AP&SS, Special issue Hot Sub-dwarf Stars, in Han Z., Jeffery S., Podsiadlowski Ph. ed