Rotating Massive Strangeon Stars and X-Ray Plateau of Short GRBs

Strangeon stars,which are proposed to describe the nature of pulsar-like compact stars,have passed various observational tests.The maximum mass of a non-rotating strangeon star could be high,which implies that the remnants of binary strangeon star mergers could even be long-lived massive strangeon stars.We study rigidly rotating strangeon stars in the slowly rotating approximation,using the Lennard-Jones model for the equation of state.Rotation can significantly increase the maximum mass of strangeon stars with unchanged baryon numbers,enlarging the mass-range of long-lived strangeon stars.During spin-down after merger,the decrease of radius of the remnant will lead to the release of gravitational energy.Taking into account the efficiency of converting the gravitational energy luminosity to the observed X-ray luminosity,we find that the gravitational energy could provide an alternative energy source for the plateau emission of X-ray afterglow.The fitting results of X-ray plateau emission of some short gamma-ray bursts suggest that the magnetic dipole field strength of the remnants can be much smaller than that of expected when the plateau emission is powered only by spin-down luminosity of magnetars.

Free Energy of Anisotropic Strangeon Stars

Can pulsar-like compact objects release further huge free energy besides the kinematic energy of rotation?This is actually relevant to the equation of state of cold supra-nuclear matter,which is still under hot debate.Enormous energy is surely needed to understand various observations,such asγ-ray bursts,fast radio bursts and softγ-ray repeaters.In this paper,the elastic/gravitational free energy of solid strangeon stars is revisited for strangeon stars,with two anisotropic models to calculate in general relativity.It is found that huge free energy(>10^(46)erg)could be released via starquakes,given an extremely small anisotropy((p_(t)-p_(r))/p_(r)~10^(-4),with pt/pr the tangential/radial pressure),implying that pulsar-like stars could have great potential of free energy release without extremely strong magnetic fields in the solid strangeon star model.

Variable Stars in the 50BiN Open Cluster Survey.Ⅲ.NGC 884

Open clusters are the basic building blocks that serve as a laboratory for the study of young stellar populations in the Milky Way.Variable stars in open clusters provide a unique way to accurately probe the internal structure,temporal and dynamical evolutionary stages of individual stars and the host cluster.The most powerful tool for such studies is time-domain photometric observations.This paper follows the route of our previous work,concentrating on a photometric search for variable stars in NGC 884.The target cluster is the companion of NGC869,forming the well-known double cluster system that is gravitationally bound.From the observation run in 2016 November,a total of 9247 B-band CCD images and 8218Ⅴ-band CCD images were obtained.We detected a total of 15 stars with variability in visual brightness,including five Be stars,three eclipsing binaries,and seven of unknown types.Two new variable stars were discovered in this work.We also compared the variable star content of NGC 884 with its companion NGC 869.

An Update of the Catalog of Radial Velocity Standard Stars from the APOGEE DR17

We present an updated catalog of 46,753 radial velocity(RV)standard stars selected from the APOGEE DR17.These stars cover the Northern and Southern Hemispheres almost evenly,with 62%being red giants and 38%being main sequence stars.These RV standard stars are stable on a baseline longer than 200 days(with 54%longer than one year and 10%longer than five years)with a median stability better than 215 m s~(-1).The average number of observations of those stars is 5 and each observation is required to have signal-to-noise ratio greater than50 and RV measurement error smaller than 500 m s~(-1).Based on the new APOGEE RV standard star catalog,we have checked the RV zero-points(RVZPs)for current large-scale stellar spectroscopic surveys including RAVE,LAMOST,GALAH and Gaia.By careful analysis,we estimate their mean RVZP to be+0.149 kms~(-1),+4.574 km s~(-1)(for LRS),-0.031 km s~(-1)and+0.014 kms~(-1),respectively,for the four surveys.In the RAVE,LAMOST(for MRS),GALAH and Gaia surveys,RVZP exhibits a systematic trend with stellar parameters(mainly[Fe/H],T_(eff),log g,G_(BP)-G_(RP)and G_(RVS)).The corrections to those small but clear RVZPs are of vital importance for these massive spectroscopic surveys in various studies that require extremely high RV accuracies.

Determination of Distance,Extinction,Mass,and Age for Stars in LAMOST DR7

Large scale spectroscopic surveys such as that using Large-sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope(LAMOST) have collected spectra of millions stars in the Milky Way.Utilizing this huge sample of stars to study the assembling history and structure of our Galaxy requires accurate estimates of distance,extinction,age,and mass for individual stars.Combining the parallax constraint from Gaia EDR3 with Bayesian inference,we have estimated the distance and extinction for stars observed in LAMOST DR7,as well as the stellar mass and age for evolved stars in this data release.We validated the accuracies of the stellar parameters by comparing our results against various measurements,including the star-pair technique,asteroseismology,globular clusters,and isochrone fits to main sequence stars and subgiants.This is a valuable catalog of stellar parameters under a Bayesian framework estimated using the data from Gaia EDR3 and LAMOST spectroscopic data.With this data set we explored the stellar population of the Galactic massive substructure Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus(GSE).The kinematically selected members of GSE have a median metallicity of [Fe/H] =-1.29 and a median age of 11.6 Gyr.

The EOSs and the Blatant Discrepancy in Modelling Massive Neutron Stars: Origin and a Possible Solution Method

Exploring the state of ultra-cold supranuclear dense matter that makes up the cores of massive neutron stars is one of the greatest unresolved problems in modern physics. In this letter, we show that when the interiors of pulsars are made of compressible and dissipative normal matter, the commonly used solution procedures combined with the known EOSs yield widely scattered solutions and poorly determined radii. A remarkable agreement emerges, however, if pulsars harbour cores that are made of incompressible entropy-free superfluids (SuSu-matter) embedded in flat spacetimes. Such supranuclear dense matter should condensate to form false vacua as predicated by non-perterbative QCD vacuum. The solutions here are found to be physically consistent and mathematically elegant, irrespective of the object’s mass. Based thereon, we conclude that the true masses of massive NSs may differ significantly from those revealed by direct observation.

The Fifth Edition of the General Catalogue of Variable Stars:experiences in the constellation Centaurus

We have recently announced that the General Catalogue of Variable Stars enters the stage of its fifth, purely electronic edition （GCVS 5.1）. We have included 1408 variable stars in the constellation Centaurus in this new version, GCVS 5.1. Working on this revision, we applied current possibilities from data mining, suggested new variability types for many variable stars and found new light elements for a large number of periodic variables. This paper describes the work completed during the preparation of GCVS 5.1 for Centaurus and discusses in detail a number of the most astrophysically significant cases.

General Relativistic Orbital Effects in Compact Binary Stars (Solution by the Method of Celestial Mechanics)

Perturbation methods are employed to calculate time variation in the orbital elements of a compact binary system. It turns out that the semi-major axis and eccentricity exhibit only periodic variations. The longitude of periastron and mean longitude of epoch exhibit both secular and periodic variation. In addition, the relativistic effects on the time of periastron passage of binary stars are also given. Four compact binary systems (PSRJ0737-3039, PSR1913+16, PSR1543+12 and M33X-7) are considered. Numerical results for both secular and periodic effects are presented, and the possibility of observing them is discussed.

Black Holes or Dark Stars—What Follows from the General Relativity Theory

The paper is concerned with spherically symmetric static problem of the Classical Gravitation Theory (CGT) and the General Relativity Theory (GRT). First, the Dark Stars, i.e. the objects that are invisible because of high gravitation preventing the propagation of light discovered in the 18th century by J. Michel and P. Laplace are discussed. Second, the Schwarzchild solution which was obtained in the beginning of the 20th century for the internal and external spaces of the perfect fluid sphere is analyzed. This solution results in singular metric coefficients and provides the basis of the Black Holes. Third, the general metric form in spherical coordinates is introduced and the solution of GRT problem is obtained under the assumption that gravitation does not affect the sphere mass. The critical sphere radius similar to the Black Hole horizon of events is found. In contrast to the Schwarzchild solution, the radial metric coefficient for the sphere with the critical radius referred to as the Dark Star is not singular. For the sphere with radius which is less than the critical value, the GRT solution becomes imaginary. The problem is discussed within the framework of the phenomenological theory which does not take into account the actual microstructure of the gravitating objects and, though the term “star” is used, the analysis is concerned with a model fluid sphere rather than with a real astrophysical object.

Quantum Stabilization of General-Relativistic Variable-Density Degenerate Stars

Research by one of the authors suggested that the critical mass of constant-density neutron stars will be greater than eight solar masses when the majority of their neutrons group into bosons that form a Bose-Einstein condensate, provided the bosons interact with each other and have scattering lengths on the order of a picometer. That analysis was able to use Newtonian theory for the condensate with scattering lengths on this order, but general relativity provides a more fundamental analysis. In this paper, we determine the equilibrium states of a static, spherically-symmetric variable-density mixture of a degenerate gas of noninteracting neutrons and a Bose-Einstein condensate using general relativity. We use a Klein-Gordan Lagrangian density with a Gross-Pitaevskii term for the condensate and an effective field for the neutrons. We show that a new class of compact stars can exist with masses above the Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit, provided the scattering length of the bosons is large enough. These stars have no internal singularities, obey causality, and demonstrate a quantum mechanism consistent with general relativity that could prevent collapsed stars from becoming black holes.

On the LSP3 estimates of surface gravity for LAMOST-Kepler stars with asteroseismic measurements

Asteroseismology allows for deriving precise values of the surface gravity of stars. The accurate asteroseismic determinations now available for the large number of stars in the Kepler fields can be used to check and calibrate surface gravities that are currently being obtained spectroscopically for a huge number of stars targeted by large-scale spectroscopic surveys, such as the on-going Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope （LAMOST） Galactic survey. The LAMOST spectral surveys have obtained a large number of stellar spectra in the Kepler fields. Stellar atmospheric parameters of those stars have been determined with the LAMOST Stellar Parameter Pipeline at Peking University （LSP3）, by template matching with the MILES empirical spectral library. In the current work, we compare surface gravities yielded by LSP3 with those of two asteroseismic samples-- the largest Kepler asteroseismic sample and the most accurate Kepler asteroseismic sample. We find that LSP3 surface gravities are in good agreement with asteroseismic values of Hekker et al., with a dispersion of -0.2 dex. Except for a few cases, asteroseismic surface gravities ofHuber et al. and LSP3 spectroscopic values agree for a wide range of surface gravities. However, some patterns in the differences can be identified upon close inspection. Potential ways to further improve the LSP3 spectroscopic estimation of stellar atmospheric parameters in the near future are briefly discussed. The effects of effective temperature and metallicity on asteroseismic determinations of surface gravities for giant stars are also discussed.

Merging strangeon stars

The state of supranuclear matter in compact stars remains puzzling, and it is argued that pul- sars could be strangeon stars. What would happen if binary strangeon stars merge？ This kind of merger could result in the formation of a hyper-massive strangeon star, accompanied by bursts of gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation （and even a strangeon kilonova explained in the paper）. The tidal polarizability of binary strangeon stars is different from that of binary neutron stars, because a strangeon star is self-bound on the surface by the fundamental strong force while a neutron star by the gravity, and their equations of state are different. Our calculation shows that the tidal polarizability of merging bi- nary strangeon stars is favored by GW170817. Three kinds of kilonovae （i.e., of neutron, quark and strangeon） are discussed, and the light curve of the kilonova AT 2017gfo following GW170817 could be explained by considering the decaying strangeon nuggets and remnant star spin-down. Additionally, the energy ejected to the fireball around the nascent remnant strangeon star, being manifested as a gamma-ray burst, is calculated. It is found that, after a prompt burst, an X-ray plateau could follow in a timescale of 102 - 103 s. Certainly, the results could be tested also by further observational synergies between gravitational wave detectors （e.g., Advanced LIGO） and X-ray telescopes （e.g., the Chinese HXMT satellite and eXTP mission）, and especially if the detected gravitational wave form is checked by peculiar equations of state provided by the numerical relativistical simulation.

Test observations that search for metal-poor stars with the Guoshoujing Telescope (LAMOST)

Metal-deficient stars are regarded as fossils of the early generation of stars and therefore make crucial observational targets related to stellar astrophysics. They provide fundamental information and insights on properties of the very early stage of the chemical history of the Galaxy and have been investigated for decades. The unique design of the Guoshoujing Telescope （LAMOST）, such as its large field and multi-object observational capability, enables it to be an excellent tool for searching for these metal-poor stars in the Milky Way. This work reports the result of test observations which search for metal-poor stars with LAMOST, during which nine candidate metal-poor stars with [Fe/H] ≤ - 1.0 were newly detected based on the low-resolution spectroscopic observations of the LAMOST commissioning data. The sample of stars demonstrates the efficiency of selecting from the input catalog, as well as the ability of LAMOST to enlarge the sample of metal-poor stars in the Milky Way. Furthermore, the sample of stars could be used for future calibrations of the LAMOST stellar pa- rameter pipeline.

Resonant cyclotron scattering in pulsar magnetospheres and its application to isolated neutron stars

Resonant cyclotron scattering （RCS） in pulsar magnetospheres is considered. The photon diffusion equation （Kompaneets equation） for RCS is derived. The photon system is modeled three dimensionally. Numerical calculations show that there exist not only up scattering but also down scattering of RCS, depending on the parameter space. RCS＇s possible applications to spectral energy distributions of magnetar candidates and radio quiet isolated neutron stars （INSs） are pointed out. The optical/UV excess of INSs may be caused by the down scattering of RCS. The calculations for RX J1856.5-3754 and RX J0720.4-3125 are presented and compared with their observational data. In our model, the INSs are proposed to be normal neutron stars, although the quark star hypothesis is still possible. The low pulsation amplitude of INSs is a natural consequence in the RCS model.

A search for strongly Mg-enhanced stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Strongly Mg-enhanced stars with [Mg/Fe] 〉 1.0 show peculiar abundance patterns and hence are of great interest for our understanding of stellar formation and chemical evolution of the Galaxy. A systematic search for strongly Mg-enhanced stars based on low-resolution （R≈2000） spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey （SDSS） is carried out by finding the synthetic spectrum that best matches the observed one in the region of Mg I b lines around λ5170 ,A via a profile matching method. The advantage of our method is that fitting parameters are refined by reproducing the [Mg/Fe] ratios of 47 stars from the very precise high-resolution spectroscopic （HRS） analysis by Nissen ＆ Schuster; and these parameters are crucial to the precision and validity of the derived Mg abundances. As a further check of our method, Mg abun- dances are estimated with our method for member stars in four Galactic globular clus- ters （M92, M 13, M3, M71） which cover the same metallicity range as our sample, and the results are in good agreement with those of HRS analysis in the literature. The val- idation of our method is also demonstrated by the agreement of [Mg/Fe] between our values and those of HRS analysis by Aoki et al. Finally, 33 candidates of strongly Mg- enhanced stars with [Mg/Fe]〉 1.0 are selected from 14 850 F and G stars. Follow-up observations will be carried out on these candidates with high-resolution spectroscopy by large telescopes in the near future, so as to check our selection procedure and to perform a precise and detailed abundance analysis and to explore the origins of these stars.

Variable stars in the 50BiN open cluster survey.Ⅱ.NGC 869

This work presents a time-series photometric variability survey of the young open cluster NGC 869.More than 13000 CCD frames in the BV filters were collected on 19 nights between 2014 November 6 and 2014 December 24.In a 20’×20’field centered on the cluster,we detected a total of 28 stars showing photometric variability,12 of which are new discoveries.The classifications and memberships of the variable stars are discussed according to the behaviors and periods of the light curves as well as their positions on the H-R diagram.These results conclude that 22 variable stars are probable members of the cluster while six other stars belong to the field star population.They are categorized as 18 pulsating variable stars(fourβCep,seven SPB,oneβCep/SPB,four Be stars,and twoδSct/γDor candidates),seven eclipsing binaries(five EA and two EB)and three unknown type stars.

Spectral classification of stars based on LAMOST spectra

In this work, we select spectra of stars with high signal-to-noise ratio from LAMOST data and map their MK classes to the spectral features. The equivalent widths of prominent spectral lines, which play a similar role as multi-color photometry, form a clean stellar locus well ordered by MK classes. The advantage of the stellar locus in line indices is that it gives a natural and continuous classification of stars consistent with either broadly used MK classes or stellar astrophysical parameters. We also employ an SVM-based classification algorithm to assign MK classes to LAMOST stellar spectra. We find that the completenesses of the classifications are up to 90% for A and G type stars, but they are down to about 50% for OB and K type stars. About 40% of the OB and K type stars are mis-classified as A and G type stars,respectively. This is likely due to the difference in the spectral features between late B type and early A type stars or between late G and early K type stars being very weak. The relatively poor performance of the automatic MK classification with SVM suggests that the direct use of line indices to classify stars is likely a more preferable choice.

Polarization variability arising from clumps in the winds of Wolf-Rayet stars

Polarimetric and photometric variability of Wolf-Rayet （WR） stars as caused by clumps in the winds is revisited. In our model, which is improved from Li et al., radial expansion of the thickness is accounted for, but we retain dependence on the β velocity law and stellar occultation effects. We again search for parameters that can yield results consistent with observations in regards to the mean polarization p, the ratio R = σp/σphot of polarimetric to photometric variability and the volume filling factor fV. Clump generation and spatial distribution are randomized by the Monte Carlo method so as to produce clumps which are, in the mean, distributed uniformly in space and have time intervals that obey a Gaussian distribution. The generated clumps move radially outward with a velocity law determined by a β index, and the angular size of clumps is assumed to be fixed. By fitting the observed σp/σphot and the volume filling factor fv, clump velocity taw index β （- 2） and clump ejection rate .N （- 1） are inferred, and are found to be well constrained. In addition, the subpeak features of broad emission lines seem to support the clump ejection rate. Meanwhile, the fraction of total mass loss rate that is contained in clumps is obtained by fitting observed polarization. We conclude that this picture of the clumps＇ properties produces a valuable diagnostic of WR wind structure.

Long-term evolution and gravitational wave radiation of neutron stars with differential rotation induced by r-modes

In a second-order r-mode theory, Sa and Tome found that the r-mode oscillation in neutron stars （NSs） could induce stellar differential rotation, which naturally leads to a saturated state of the oscillation. Based on a consideration of the coupling of the r-modes and the stellar spin and thermal evolution, we carefully investigate the influences of the differential rotation on the long-term evolution of isolated NSs and NSs in low-mass X-ray binaries, where the viscous damping of the r-modes and its resultant effects are taken into account. The numerical results show that, for both kinds of NSs, the differential rotation can significantly prolong the duration of the r-modes. As a result, the stars can keep nearly a constant temperature and constant angular velocity for over a thousand years. Moreover, the persistent radiation of a quasi-monochromatic gravitational wave would also be predicted due to the long-term steady r-mode oscillation and stellar rotation. This increases the detectability of gravitational waves from both young isolated and old accreting NSs.

Radio stars observed in the LAMOST spectral survey

Radio stars have attracted astronomers＇ attention for several decades. To better understand the physics behind stellar radio emissions, it is important to study their optical behaviors. The LAMOST survey provides a large database for researching stellar spectroscopic properties of radio stars. In this work, we concentrate on their spectroscopic properties and infer physical properties from their spectra, such as stellar activity and variability. We mined big data from the LAMOST spectral survey Data Release 2 （DR2）, published on 2016 June 30, by cross-matching them with radio stars from FIRST and other surveys. We obtained 783 good stellar spectra with high signal to noise ratio for 659 stars. The criteria for selection were positional coincidence within 1.5＂ and LAMOST objects classified as stars. We calculated the equivalent widths （EWs） of the Ca II H＆K, HS, H＇7, H/3, Ha and Ca II IRT lines by integrating the line profiles. Using the EWs of the Ha line, we detected 147 active stellar spectra of 89 objects having emissions above the Ha continuum. There were also 36 objects with repeated spectra, 28 of which showed chromospheric activity variability. Furthermore, we found 14 radio stars emitting noticeably in the Ca II IRT lines. The low value of the EWs542/EWsags ratio for these 14 radio stars possibly alludes to chromospheric plage regions.