Comparing the Structural Parameters of the Milky Way to Other Spiral Galaxies

The structural parameters of a galaxy can be used to gain insight into its formation and evolution history.In this paper,we strive to compare the Milky Way’s structural parameters to other,primarily edge-on,spiral galaxies in order to determine how our Galaxy measures up to the Local Universe.For our comparison,we use the galaxy structural parameters gathered from a variety of literature sources in the optical and near-infrared wave bands.We compare the scale length,scale height,and disk flatness for both the thin and thick disks,the thick-to-thin disk mass ratio,the bulge-to-total luminosity ratio,and the mean pitch angle of the Milky Way’s spiral arms to those in other galaxies.We conclude that many of the Milky Way’s structural parameters are largely ordinary and typical of spiral galaxies in the Local Universe,though the Galaxy’s thick disk appears to be appreciably thinner and less extended than expected from zoom-in cosmological simulations of Milky Way-mass galaxies with a significant contribution of galaxy mergers involving satellite galaxies.

Precise determination of fundamental parameters of six exoplanet host stars and their planets

The aim of this paper is to determinate the fundamental parameters of six exoplanet host （EH） stars and their planets. Because techniques for detecting exo- planets yield properties of the planet only as a function of the properties of the host star, we must accurately determine the parameters of the EH stars first. For this rea- son, we constructed a grid of stellar models including diffusion and rotation-induced extra-mixing with given ranges of input parameters （i.e. mass, metallicity and initial rotation rate）. In addition to the commonly used observational constraints such as the effective temperature Tell, luminosity L and metallicity [Fe/H], we added two obser- vational constraints, the lithium abundance log N （Li） and the rotational period Prot. These two additional observed parameters can set further constraints on the model due to their correlations with mass, age and other stellar properties. Hence, our estimations of the fundamental parameters for these EH stars and their planets have a higher preci- sion than previous works. Therefore, the combination of rotational period and lithium helps us to obtain more accurate parameters for stars, leading to an improvement in knowledge about the physical state of EH stars and their planets.

Disk Thicknesses and Some Parameters of 108 Non-Edge-On Spiral Galaxies

We present disk thicknesses, some other parameters and their statistics of 108 nonedge-on spiral galaxies. The method for determining the disk thickness is based on solving Poisson＇s equation for a disturbance of matter density in three-dimensional spiral galaxies. From the spiral arms found we could obtain the pitch angles, the inclination of the galactic disk, and the position of the innermost point （the forbidden region with radius r0 to the galactic center） of the spiral arm, and finally the thickness.

Cross-method Analysis of Corotation Radii Data Set for Spiral Galaxies

A corotation radius is a key characteristic of disk galaxies that is essential to determine the angular speed of the spiral structureΩ_p,and therefore understand its nature.In the literature,there are plenty of methods to estimate this value,but do these measurements have any consistency?In this work,we collected a data set of corotation radius measurements for 547 galaxies,300 of which had at least two values.An initial analysis reveals that most objects have rather inconsistent corotation radius positions.Moreover,a significant fraction of galactic disks is distinguished by a large error coverage and almost uniform distribution of measurements.These findings do not have any relation to spiral type,Hubble classification,or presence of a bar.Among other reasons,obtained results could be explained by the transient nature of spirals in a considerable part of galaxies.We have made our collected data sample publicly available,and have demonstrated on one example how it could be useful for future research by investigating a winding time value for a sample of galaxies with possible multiple spiral arm patterns.

Searching the Parameters of Dark Matter Halos on the Basis of Dwarf Galaxies’ Dynamics

Article devoted to searching the parameters of dark matter halos on the base of dwarf galaxies’ dynamics (Messier 32 and Leo I). For doing this, we propose the new approach founded on construction the coupled elliptical trajectory for a probe body in the gravitational fields of Newtonian potential and potential of dark matter’s halo. This allows more accuracy estimate its central density for the Navarro-Frenk-White profile and free parameter for the Einasto profile . Our result is in good correlation with results of other authors that are got by different numerical methods.

Cosmological Constraints on Neutrino Masses in Light of JWST Red and Massive Candidate Galaxies

The overabundance of the red and massive candidate galaxies observed by the James Webb Space Telescope(JWST)implies efficient structure formation or large star formation efficiency at high redshift z~10.In the scenario of a low or moderate star formation efficiency,because massive neutrinos tend to suppress the growth of structure of the universe,the JWST observation tightens the upper bound of the neutrino masses.Assuming A cold dark matter cosmology and a star formation efficiency∈[0.05,0.3](flat prior),we perform joint analyses of Planck+JWST and Planck+BAO+JWST,and obtain improved constraints∑m_(ν)<0.196 eV and ∑m_(ν)+<0.111 eV at 95% confidence level,respectively.Based on the above assumptions,the inverted mass ordering,which implies ∑m_(ν)≥0.1 eV,is excluded by Planck+BAO+JWST at 92.7% confidence level.

Quantifying the Tension between Cosmological Models and JWST Red Candidate Massive Galaxies

We develop a Python tool to estimate the tail distribution of the number of dark matter halos beyond a mass threshold and in a given volume in a light-cone.The code is based on the extended Press-Schechter model and is computationally efficient,typically taking a few seconds on a personal laptop for a given set of cosmological parameters.The high efficiency of the code allows a quick estimation of the tension between cosmological models and the red candidate massive galaxies released by the James Webb Space Telescope,as well as scanning the theory space with the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method.As an example application,we use the tool to study the cosmological implication of the candidate galaxies presented in Labbéet al.The standard Λcold dark matter(ΛCDM)model is well consistent with the data if the star formation efficiency can reach~0.3 at high redshift.For a low star formation efficiency ε~0.1,theΛCDM model is disfavored at~2σ-3σconfidence level.

Relations between SMBH Parameters and Jet Generation and Efficiency in Blazars

We analyzed the relationship between several basic parameters describing supermassive black holes such as jet power,black hole spin,accretion disk magnetic field,black hole mass,etc.We found that there is a general correlation between these parameters,such as jet power is significantly positively correlated with black hole spin,while black hole mass is significantly negatively correlated with black hole spin.To apprehend these relationships,we consider the Blandford–Znajek model to be superior to the Blandford–Payne model.It is also found that the intrinsic gamma luminosity of the FSRQs has a positive correlation with the accretion disk magnetic field,while the intrinsic gamma luminosity of the BL Lacs has a negative correlation with the accretion disk magnetic field.A feedback effect may exist between accretion disk accretion rate and magnetic field,which may be the key to the evolution between BL Lacs and FSRQs.There is no significant difference in the jet power and jet generation efficiency of FSRQs and BL Lacs,which suggests that the jets are generated by the same mechanism.The contribution rate of accretion rate to jet generation efficiency is high,while the contribution rate of accretion rate to jet power is very low.

Physical and geometrical parameters of CVBS X:the spectroscopic binary Gliese 762.1

We present the physical and geometrical parameters of the individual components of the close visual double-lined spectroscopic binary system Gliese 762.1, which were estimated using Al-Wardat＇s complex method for analyzing close visual binary systems. The estimated parameters of the individual components of the system are as follows： radius RA= 0.845±0.09R⊙, RB= 0.795±0.10R⊙, effective temperature Teff^A = 5300luminosity±50 K, Teff^B= 5150 L±50 K, surface gravity log gA= 4.52±0.10, log gB=4.54±0.15 and A= 0.51 with a semi-major axis of 0.0865±0.08L⊙, LB= 0.40±0.07L⊙. New orbital elements are presented±0.010 arcsec using the Hippracos parallax π = 58.96 ndividual masses of the system are determined as M = 1.±0.65 mas, and an accurate total mass and i72±0.60 M⊙,MA= 0.89±0.08 M⊙and MB= 0.83 K0 V and±0.07 M⊙. Finally, the spectral types and luminosity classes of both components are assigned as K1.5V for the primary and secondary components respectively,and their positions on the H-R diagram and evolutionary tracks are given.

Physical and geometrical parameters of VCBS XIII: HIP 105947

The best physical and geometrical parameters of the main sequence close visual binary system(CVBS), HIP 105947, are presented. These parameters have been constructed conclusively using Al-Wardat’s complex method for analyzing CVBSs, which is a method for constructing a synthetic spectral energy distribution(SED) for the entire binary system using individual SEDs for each component star. The model atmospheres are in its turn built using the Kurucz(ATLAS9) line-blanketed plane-parallel models. At the same time, the orbital parameters for the system are calculated using Tokovinin’s dynamical method for constructing the best orbits of an interferometric binary system. Moreover, the mass-sum of the components, as well as the ?θ and ?ρ residuals for the system, is introduced. The combination of Al-Wardat’s and Tokovinin’s methods yields the best estimations of the physical and geometrical parameters. The positions of the components in the system on the evolutionary tracks and isochrones are plotted and the formation and evolution of the system are discussed.

Four new observational H(z) data from luminous red galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release seven

By adopting the differential age method, we select 17 832 luminous red galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Seven covering redshift 0 〈 z 〈 0.4 to measure the Hubble parameter. Using the full spectrum fitting package UZySS, these spectra are reduced with single stellar population models and optimal age information from our selected sample is derived. With the decreasing age-redshift relation, four new observational H（z） data （OHD） points are obtained, which are H（z） = 69.0 ± 19.6 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 at z = 0.07, H（z） = 68.6± 26.2 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 at z = 0.12, H（z）=72.9 ± 29.6 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 at z = 0.2 and H（z）=88.8 ± 36.6 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 at z = 0.28, respectively. Combined with 21 other available OHD data points, the performance of the constraint on both flat and non-flat ACDM models is presented.

Automatic determination of stellar atmospheric parameters and construction of stellar spectral templates of the Guoshoujing Telescope (LAMOST)

A number of spectroscopic surveys have been carried out or are planned to study the origin of the Milky Way. Their exploitation requires reliable automated methods and softwares to measure the fundamental parameters of the stars. Adopting the ULySS package, we have tested the effect of different resolutions and signal-to- noise ratios （SNR） on the measurement of the stellar atmospheric parameters （effective temperature Teff, surface gravity log g, and metaUicity [Fe/H]）. We show that ULySS is reliable for determining these parameters with medium-resolution spectra （R ～2000）. Then, we applied the method to measure the parameters of 771 stars selected in the commissioning database of the Guoshoujing Telescope （LAMOST）. The results were compared with the SDSS/SEGUE Stellar Parameter Pipeline （SSPP）, and we derived precisions of 167 K, 0.34dex, and 0.16dex for Teff, logg and [Fe/H] respectively. Furthermore, 120 of these stars are selected to construct the primary stellar spectral template library （Version 1.0） of LAMOST, and will be deployed as basic ingredients for the LAMOST automated parametrization pipeline.

Stellar parameters of main sequence turn-off star candidates observed with LAMOST and Kepler

Main sequence turn-off （MSTO） stars since their ages can be robustly estimated from have advantages as indicators of Galactic evolution atmospheric parameters. Hundreds of thousands of MSTO stars have been selected from the LAMOST Galactic survey to study the evolution of the Galaxy, and it is vital to derive accurate stellar parameters. In this work, we select 150 MSTO star candidates from the MSTO star sample of Xiang that have asteroseismic parameters and determine accurate stellar parameters for these stars by combining asteroseismic parameters deduced from Kepler photometry and atmospheric parameters deduced from LAMOST spectra. With this sample, we examine the age determination as well as the contamination rate of the MSTO star sample. A comparison of age between this work and Xiang shows a mean difference of 0.53 Gyr （7%） and a dispersion of 2.71 Gyr （28%）. The results show that 79 of the candidates are MSTO stars, while the others are contaminations from either main sequence or sub-giant stars. The contamination rate for the oldest stars is much higher than that for younger stars. The main cause for the high contamination rate is found to be the relatively large systematic bias in the LAMOST surface gravity estimates.

Physical and geometrical parameters of CVBS Ⅺ: Cou 1511(HIP 12552)

Model atmospheres of the close visual binary star Cou 1511 （HIP 12552） are constructed using grids of Kuruz＇s blanketed models to build the individual synthetic spectral energy distributions （SEDs） for both components. These synthetic SEDs are combined together for the entire system and compared with the observational one following A1-Wardat＇s complex method for analyzing close visual binary stars. The entire observational SED of the system is used as a reference for comparison between the synthetic SED and the observed one. The parameters of both components are derived as： Teff = 6180 4- 50 K, Tebfr = 5865 ＋ 70 K, log 9a = 4.35 ± 0.12, log 9b = 4.45± 0.14, Ra = 1.262 ± 0.08 R⊙^eff, Rb = 1.006 ± 0.07 R⊙^ett, La = 2.09 -4- 0.10 L⊙ and Lb = 1.08 ± 0.12 L⊙, with spectral types F8V and G1.5V for components （a, b） respectively and age of 3.0 ± 0.9 Gyr. A modified orbit of the system is built and the masses of the two components are calculated as Ma = 1.17 ±0.11 Me and Mb = 1.06 ± 0.10 Me.

Some Remarks on the Method of Fundamental Solutions for Two- Dimensional Elasticity

In this paper,some remarks for more efficient analysis of two-dimensional elastostatic problems using the method of fundamental solutions are made.First,the effects of the distance between pseudo and main boundaries on the solution are investigated and by a numerical study a lower bound for the distance of each source point to the main boundary is suggested.In some cases,the resulting system of equations becomes ill-conditioned for which,the truncated singular value decomposition with a criterion based on the accuracy of the imposition of boundary conditions is used.Moreover,a procedure for normalizing the shear modulus is presented that significantly reduces the condition number of the system of equations.By solving two example problems with stress concentration,the effectiveness of the proposed methods is demonstrated.

Validation of LAMOST stellar parameters with the PASTEL catalog

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope （LAMOST） published its first data release （DR1） in 2013, which is currently the largest dataset of stellar spectra in the world. We combine the PASTEL catalog and SIMBAD radial velocities as a testing standard to validate stellar parameters （effec- tive temperature Tefr, surface gravity log g, metallicity [Fe/H] and radial velocity Vr） derived from DR1. Through cross-identification of the DR1 catalogs and the PASTEL catalog, we obtain a preliminary sample of 422 stars. After removal of stellar param- eter measurements from problematic spectra and applying effective temperature con- straints to the sample, we compare the stellar parameters from DR1 with those from PASTEL and SIMBAD to demonstrate that the DR1 results are reliable in restricted ranges of Tefr. We derive standard deviations of 110 K, 0.19 dex and 0.11 dex for Tell, log 9 and [Fe/H] respectively when Teff〈 8000 K, and 4.91 km s-1 for Vr when Teff 〈 10 000 K. Systematic errors are negligible except for those of Vr. In addition, metallicities in DR1 are systematically higher than those in PASTEL, in the range of PASTEL [Fe/H] 〈 -1.5.

The W UMa binaries USNO-A2.0 1350-17365531,V471 Cas,V479 Lac and V560 Lac:light curve solutions and global parameters based on Gaia distances

We present photometric observations in Sloan filters g′, i′of the eclipsing W UMa stars USNOA2.0 1350-17365531, V471 Cas, V479 Lac and V560 Lac. The sinusoidal-like O-C diagram of V471 Cas indicates the presence of a third body with mass 0.12 M_⊙(a red dwarf) at distance 897 R_⊙. The O-C diagram of V479 Lac reveals a period decrease of d P/dt =-1.69 × 10-6d yr-1. The results of the light curve solutions are:(i) the targets are overcontact binaries with small fill-out factors;(ii) their components are F–K stars, comparable in size, whose temperature differences are below 80 K;(iii) all targets undergo partial eclipses and to limit the possible mass ratios we carried out two-step q-search analysis. The target global parameters(luminosities, radii, masses) were obtained on the basis of their Gaia distances and the results of our light curve solutions. The obtained total mass of V560 Lac turns out to be smaller than the lower mass limit for presently known W UMa binaries of 1.0-1.2 M_⊙, i.e. this target is a peculiar overcontact system.

Estimating stellar atmospheric parameters based on Lasso features

With the rapid development of large scale sky surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey （SDSS）, GAIA and LAMOST （Guoshoujing telescope）, stellar spectra can be obtained on an ever-increasing scale. Therefore, it is necessary to estimate stel- lar atmospheric parameters such as Teff, log g and [Fe/H] automatically to achieve the scientific goals and make full use of the potential value of these observations. Feature selection plays a key role in the automatic measurement of atmospheric parameters. We propose to use the least absolute shrinkage selection operator （Lasso） algorithm to select features from stellar spectra. Feature selection can reduce redundancy in spectra, alleviate the influence of noise, improve calculation speed and enhance the robustness of the estimation system. Based on the extracted features, stellar atmospheric param- eters are estimated by the support vector regression model. Three typical schemes are evaluated on spectral data from both the ELODIE library and SDSS. Experimental results show the potential performance to a certain degree. In addition, results show that our method is stable when applied to different spectra.

A comparison of stellar atmospheric parameters from the LAMOST and APOGEE datasets

We have compared stellar parameters, including temperature, gravity and metallicity, for common stars in the LAMOST DR2 and SDSS DR12/APOGEE datasets. It is found that the LAMOST dataset provides a more well-defined red clump feature than the APOGEE dataset in the Teff versus log g diagram. With this advantage, we have separated red clump stars from red giant stars, and attempt to establish calibrations between the two datasets for the two groups of stars. The results show that there is a good consistency in temperature with a calibration close to the one-to-one line, and we can establish a satisfactory metallicity calibration of[Fe/H]APOGEE= 1.18[Fe/H]LAMOST ＋ 0.11 with a scatter of ～ 0.08 dex for both the red clump and red giant branch samples. For gravity, there is no correlation for red clump stars between the two datasets, and scatters around the calibrations of red giant stars are substantial. We found two main sources of scatter in log g for red giant stars. One is a group of stars with 0.00253 × Teff- 8.67 〈 log g 〈 2.6 located in the forbidden region, and the other is the contaminated red clump stars, which could be picked out from the unmatched region where stellar metallicity is not consistent with position in the Teff versus log g diagram. After excluding stars in these two regions,we have established two calibrations for red giant stars, log g APOGEE = 0.000615 ×Teff,LAMOST＋ 0.697 × log g LAMOST- 2.208（σ = 0.150） for [Fe/H] 〉-1 and log gAPOGEE= 0.000874×Teff,LAMOST＋0.588×log g LAMOST-3.117（σ = 0.167）for [Fe/H] 〈-1. The calibrations are valid for stars with Teff = 3800- 5400 K and log g = 0- 3.8 dex, and are useful in work aiming to combine the LAMOST and APOGEE datasets in a future study. In addition, we find that an SVM method based on asteroseismic log g is a good way to greatly improve the accuracy of gravity for these two regions, at least in the LAMOST dataset.

Combining optical and X-ray observations of galaxy clusters to constrain cosmological parameters

Galaxy clusters present unique advantages for cosmological study.Here we collect a new sample of 10 lensing galaxy clusters with X-ray observations to constrain cosmological parameters.The redshifts of the lensing clusters lie between 0.1 and 0.6,and the redshift range of their arcs is from 0.4 to 4.9.These clusters are selected carefully from strong gravitational lensing systems which have both X-ray satellite observations and optical giant luminous arcs with known redshifts.Giant arcs usually appear in the central region of clusters,where mass can be traced with luminosity quite well.Based on gravitational lensing theory and a cluster mass distribution model,we can derive a ratio using two angular diameter distances.One is the distance between lensing sources and the other is that between the deflector and the source. Since angular diameter distance relies heavily on cosmological geometry,we can use these ratios to constrain cosmological models.Moreover,X-ray gas fractions of galaxy clusters can also be a cosmological probe.Because there are a dozen parameters to be fitted,we introduce a new analytic algorithm,Powell＇s UOBYQA（Unconstrained Optimization By Quadratic Approximation） ,to accelerate our calculation.Our result demonstrates that this algorithm is an effective fitting method for such a continuous multi-parameter constraint.We find an interesting fact that these two approaches are separately sensitive toΩΛandΩM.By combining them,we can get reasonable fitting values of basic cosmological parameters：ΩM=0.26 ＋0.04 -0.04,andΩΛ=0.82 ＋0.14 -0.16.