Discovery of magnetic fields in hot subdwarfs

We present initial results of a project to measure mean longitudinal magnetic fields in a group of sdB/OB/O stars. The project was inspired by the discovery of three super-metal-rich sdOB stars, each having metals (e.g. Ti, V) enhanced by factors of 10^3 to 10^5. Similar behaviour is observed in chemically peculiar A stars, where strong magnetic fields are responsible for the enrichment. With this in mind, we obtained circularly polarised spectra of two of the super-metal-rich sdOBs, two "normal" sdBs and two sdOs using FORS1 on the ESO/VLT. By examining circular polarisation in the hydrogen Balmer lines and in helium lines, we have detected magnetic fields with strengths of 1-2 kG in most of our targets. This suggests that such fields are relatively common in hot subdwarfs.Comment: 4 pages, to appear in White Dwarfs, eds. D. Koester, S. Moehler, ASP Conf. serie

Abundance studies of sdB stars using UV echelle HST/STIS spectroscopy

Aims: We test the hypothesis that the pulsations in sdB stars are correlated with the surface abundances of iron-group elements. Any correlation might explain why, when given two spectroscopically similar stars, one will pulsate while the other will not. Methods: We have obtained high-resolution ultraviolet spectra two pulsating and three non-pulsating sdB stars using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. We determined abundances for 25 elements including the iron group and even heavier elements such as tin and lead using LTE curve-of-growth and spectrum synthesis techniques. Results: We find no clear correlation between pulsations and metal abundances, and we comment on the resulting implications, including whether it is possible to determine the difference between a pulsating and a non-pulsating sdB spectroscopically. In addition to the main goal of our observations, we have also investigated the effect of supersolar metallicity on fundamental parameter determination, possible trends with iron abundance, and the hypothesis that weak winds may be selectively removing elements from the stellar envelopes. These effects provide challenges to stellar atmosphere modelling and diffusion models for sdB stars.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Depth Estimation Through a Generative Model of Light Field Synthesis

Light field photography captures rich structural information that may facilitate a number of traditional image processing and computer vision tasks. A crucial ingredient in such endeavors is accurate depth recovery. We present a novel framework that allows the recovery of a high quality continuous depth map from light field data. To this end we propose a generative model of a light field that is fully parametrized by its corresponding depth map. The model allows for the integration of powerful regularization techniques such as a non-local means prior, facilitating accurate depth map estimation.Comment: German Conference on Pattern Recognition (GCPR) 201

Hypervelocity Stars in the Gaia era. Revisiting the most extreme stars from the MMT survey

The hypervelocity star (HVS) survey conducted at the Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT) identified 42 B-type stars in the Galactic halo whose radial velocity in the Galactic rest-frame exceeds $+275\,$km$\,$s${}^{-1}$. In order to unravel the nature and origin of those high-velocity outliers, their complete six-dimensional phase space information is needed. To this end, we complemented positions and proper motions from the second data release of {\it Gaia} with revised radial velocities and spectrophotometric distances that are based on a reanalysis of the available MMT spectra of 40 objects using state-of-the-art model spectra and a tailored analysis strategy. The resulting position and velocity vectors for 37 stars were then used as input for a subsequent kinematic investigation to obtain as complete a picture as possible. The combination of projected rotational velocity, position in the Kiel diagram, and kinematic properties suggests that all objects in the sample except two (B576, B598) are very likely to be main sequence stars. While the available data are still not precise enough to constrain the place of origin for 19 program stars, we identified eight objects that either come from the outer rim of the Galactic disk or not from the disk at all, along with ten that presumably stem from the Galactic disk. For almost all of those 18 targets with more or less well-constrained spatial origin, the Galactic center (GC) is disqualified as a possible place of origin. The most notable exception is B576, the origin of which coincides extremely well with the GC when assuming a blue horizontal branch (BHB) nature for it. HVS$\,$22 is by far the most extreme object in the sample. Although its origin is completely unconstrained, an ejection from the GC by the Hills mechanism is the most plausible explanation for its current Galactic rest-frame velocity of $1530^{+690}_{-560}\,$km$\,$s${}^{-1}$

Time resolved spectroscopy of the multiperiodic pulsating subdwarf B star PG1605+072

We present results for the 2m spectroscopic part of the MultiSite Spectroscopic Telescope campaign, which took place in May/June 2002. In order to perform an asteroseismological analysis on the multiperiodic pulsating subdwarf B star PG 1605+072 we used over 150 hours of time resolved spectroscopy in order to search for and analyse line profile variations by using phase binning. We succeeded in finding variations in effective temperature and gravity for four modes. A pilot analysis using the \textit{BRUCE} and \textit{KYLIE} programs and assuming strong rotation and low inclination favours models with $l=1$ or $l=2$ with $m\leq0$.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of the "Vienna Workshop on the Future of Asteroseismology", to appear in Communications in Asteroseismology v. 14