Identifying Carbon stars from the LAMOST pilot survey with the efficient manifold ranking algorithm

Carbon stars are excellent kinematic tracers of galaxies and can serve as a viable standard candle, so it is worthwhile to automatically search for them in a large amount of spectra. In this paper, we apply the efficient manifold ranking algorithm to search for carbon stars from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope （LAMOST） pilot survey, whose performance and robustness are verified comprehensively with four test experiments. Using this algorithm, we find a total of 183 carbon stars, and 158 of them are new findings. According to different spectral features, our carbon stars are classified as 58 C-H stars, 11 C-H star candidates, 56 C-R stars, ten C-R star candidates, 30 C-N stars, three C-N star candidates, and four C-J stars. There are also ten objects which have no spectral type because of low spec- tral quality, and a composite spectrum consisting of a white dwarf and a carbon star. Applying the support vector machine algorithm, we obtain the linear optimum clas- sification plane in the J - H versus/-/- Ks color diagram which can be used to distinguish C-H from C-N stars with their J - H and H - Ks colors. In addition, we identify 18 dwarf carbon stars with their relatively high proper motions, and find three carbon stars with FUV detections likely have optical invisible companions by cross matching with data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer. In the end, we detect four variable carbon stars with the Northern Sky Variability Survey, the Catalina Sky Survey and the LINEAR variability databases. According to their periods and ampli- tudes derived by fitting light curves with a sinusoidal function, three of them are likely semiregular variable stars and one is likely a Mira variable star.

A search for double-peaked narrow emission line galaxies and AGNs in the LAMOST DR1

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope （LAMOST） has released more than two million spectra, which provide the opportunity to search for double-peaked narrow emission line （NEL） galaxies and active galactic nuclei （AGNs）. The double-peaked narrow-line profiles can be well modeled by two velocity components, respectively blueshifted and redshifted with respect to the sys- temic recession velocity. This paper presents 20 double-peaked NEL galaxies and AGNs found from LAMOST DR1 using a search method based on a multi-Gaussian fit of the narrow emission lines. Among them, ten have already been published by other authors, either listed as genuine double-peaked NEL objects or as asymmetric NEL objects, and the remaining ten are original discoveries. We discuss some pos- sible origins for the double-peaked narrow-line features, such as interaction between jet and narrow line regions, interaction with companion galaxies, and black hole bina- ries. Spatially resolved optical imaging and/or follow-up observations in other spectral bands are needed to further discuss the physical mechanisms at work.