GRB 200612A:An Ultralong Gamma-Ray Burst Powered by Magnetar Spinning Down

GRB 200612A could be classified as an ultralong gamma-ray burst due to its prompt emission lasting up to~1020 s and the true timescale of the central engine activity t_(burst)≥4×10^(4) s.The late X-ray light curve with a decay index ofα=7.53 is steeper than the steepest possible decay from an external shock model.We propose that this X-ray afterglow can be driven by dipolar radiation from the magnetar spindown during its early stage,while the magnetar collapsed into the black hole before its spindown,resulting in a very steep decay of the late X-ray light curve.The optical data show that the light curve is still rising after 1.1 ks,suggesting a late onset.We show that GRB 200612A’s optical afterglow light curve is fitted with the forward shock model by Gaussian structured off-axis jet.This is a special case among GRBs,as it may be an ultralong gamma-ray burst powered by a magnetar in an off-axis observation scenario.

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.

On the Identification of N-rich Metal-poor Field Stars with Future Chinese Space Station Telescope

During the long term evolution of globular clusters(GCs), some member stars are lost to the field. The recently found nitrogen-rich(N-rich) metal-poor field stars are promising candidates of these GC escapees, since N enhancement is the fingerprint of chemically enhanced populations in GCs. In this work, we discuss the possibility of identifying N-rich metal-poor field stars with the upcoming Chinese Space Station Telescope(CSST). We focus on the main survey camera with NUV, u, g, r, i, z, y filters and slitless spectrograph with a resolution about 200.The combination of UV sensitive equipment and prominent N-related molecular lines in the UV band bodes well for the identification: the color–color diagram of(u-g) versus(g-r) is capable of separating N-rich field stars from normal halo stars, if metallicity can be estimated without using the information on u-band photometry.Besides, the synthetic spectra show that a signal-to-noise ratio of 10 is sufficient to identify N-rich field stars. In the near future, a large sample of N-rich field stars found by CSST, combined with state-of-the-art N-body simulations will be crucial to deciphering GC-Galaxy co-evolution.

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.

Period–Luminosity Relationship forδScuti Stars Revisited

The Gaia DR3 parallax approach was used to estimate the absolute parameters of 2375δScuti stars from the ASAS catalog.The selected stars have a variety of observational characteristics,with a higher than 80%probability of beingδScuti stars.We have displayed all the stars in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram along with theδScuti instability strip,the Zero Age Main Sequence and the Terminal Age Main Sequence.Then,we determined which fundamental and overtone modes each star belongs to using pulsation constant(Q)calculations.In addition,we evaluated the parameters in the Q calculation equation using three machine learning methods,which showed that surface gravity and temperature have the greatest effect on its calculation.The Period-Luminosity(P-L)relationship of theδScuti stars was also revisited.Eventually,using least squares linear regression,we made four linear fits for fundamental and overtone modes and updated their relationships.

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.

Spin Evolution of the Magnetar SGR J1935+2154

Fast radio bursts(FRBs)are short pulses observed in radio frequencies usually originating from cosmological distances.The discovery of FRB 200428 and its X-ray counterpart from the Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154suggests that at least some FRBs can be generated by magnetars.However,the majority of X-ray bursts from magnetars are not associated with radio emission.The fact that only in rare cases can an FRB be generated raises the question regarding the special triggering mechanism of FRBs.Here we report long time spin evolution of SGR J1935+2154 until the end of 2022.According to v and v,the spin evolution of SGR J1935+2154 could be divided into two stages.The first stage evolves relatively steady evolution until 2020 April 27.After the burst activity in2020,the spin of SGR J1935+2154 shows strong variations,especially for v.After the burst activity in 2022October,a new spin-down glitch with△v/v=(-7.2±0.6)×10^(-6)is detected around MJD 59876,which is the second event in SGR J1935+2154.At the end,spin frequency and pulse profile do not show variations around the time of FRB 200428 and radio bursts 221014 and 221021,which supply strong clues to constrain the trigger mechanism of FRBs or radio bursts.

Life Origin in the Milky Way Galaxy: III. Spatial Distribution of Overheated Stars in the Solar Neighborhood

A concept of ensemble averaged stellar reactors is developed to study the dynamics of processes occurring in stars, allocated in the ~200 pc solar neighborhood. According to the effective temperature value, four stellar classes are identified, for which the correlation coefficients and standard deviation are counted. The theory of the buoyancy terrestial elements is generalized to stellar systems. It was suggested that stars are over-heated due to the shift parameters of the nuclear processes occurring inside the stars, which leads to the synthesis of transuranium elements until the achievement of a critical nuclear mass and star explosion. The heavy transuranium elements sink downward and are concentrated in the stellar depth layers. The physical explanation of the existence of the critical Chandrasekhar star limit has been offered. Based on the spatial analysis of overheated stars, it was suggested that the withdrawal of the stellar reactor from the equilibrium state is a consequence of extragalactic compression inside the galaxy arm due to the arm spirality (not to be confused with the spirality of the galaxy itself).

Gravitational Wave Radiation from Newborn Accreting Magnetars

The observed electromagnetic radiation from some long and short gamma-ray bursts,and neutron stars(NSs),and the theoretical models proposed to interpret these observations together point to a very interesting but confusing problem,namely,whether fall-back accretion could lead to dipole field decay of newborn NSs.In this paper,we investigate the gravitational wave(GW) radiation of newborn magnetars with a fall-back disk formed in both the core-collapse of massive stars and the merger of binary NSs.We make a comparison of the results obtained with and without fall-back accretion-induced dipole-field decay(FADD) involved.Depending on the fall-back parameters,initial parameters of newborn magnetars,and models used to describe FADD,FADD may indeed occur in newborn magnetars.Because of the low dipole fields caused by FADD,the newborn magnetars will be spun up to higher frequencies and have larger masses in comparison with the non-decay cases.Thus the GW radiation of newborn accreting magnetars would be remarkably enhanced.We propose that observation of GW signals from newborn magnetars using future GW detectors may help to reveal whether FADD could occur in newborn accreting magnetars.Our model is also applied to the discussion of the remnant of GW170817.From the post-merger GW searching results of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo we cannot confirm the remnant is a low-dipole-field long-lived NS.Future detection of GWs from GW170817-like events using more sensitive detectors may help to clarify the FADD puzzle.

New Cases of Superflares on Slowly Rotating Solar-type Stars and Large Amplitude Superflares in G-and M-type Main Sequence Stars

In our previous work,we searched for superflares on different types of stars while focusing on G-type dwarfs using entire Kepler data to study statistical properties of the occurrence rate of superflares.Using these new data,as a byproduct,we found 14 cases of superflare detection on 13 slowly rotating Sun-like stars with rotation periods of24.5–44 days.This result supports the earlier conclusion by others that the Sun may possibly undergo a surprise superflare.Moreover,we found 12 and seven new cases of detection of exceptionally large amplitude superflares on six and four main sequence stars of G-and M-type,respectively.No large-amplitude flares were detected in A,F or K main sequence stars.Here we present preliminary analysis of these cases.The superflare detection,i.e.,an estimation of flare energy,is based on a more accurate method compared to previous studies.We fit an exponential decay function to flare light curves and study the relation between e-folding decay time,τ,versus flare amplitude and flare energy.We find that for slowly rotating Sun-like stars,large values ofτcorrespond to small flare energies and small values ofτcorrespond to high flare energies considered.Similarly,τis large for small flare amplitudes andτis small for large amplitudes considered.However,there is no clear relation between these parameters for large amplitude superflares in the main sequence G-and M-type stars,as we could not establish clear functional dependence between the parameters via standard fitting algorithms.

Analysis of X-Ray Emission from OB Stars. IV. About X-Ray Emission from Inhomogeneous Winds of OB Stars

We study the origin of X-ray emission from OB stars due to collisions of stellar winds and/or inhomogeneities in the winds. The low-resolution X-ray spectra of a big sample of OB stars were fitted by both the stationary APEC/MEKAL models and by this model with an additional PSHOCK component describing the nonstationary X-ray emission. These spectra were also described by two-temperature PSHOCK models. More than ~50% of considered spectra can be described by the above-mentioned model combinations including the PSHOCK model and the quality of the fits appears to be better for O stars. The plasma temperature of the PSHOCK component is about 1–5 keV with the ionization timescale τ_(u)~ 10^(8)–10^(13)s cm^(-3). The temperature of the PSHOCK component increases with the momentum and kinetic energy of the stellar wind by a power law with an index ~0.12–0.14.Such dependencies were not revealed through modeling by the stationary APEC/MEKAL models only. At the same time the X-ray luminosity of OB stars depends on momentum and kinetic energy of their winds similarly either for stationary or for nonstationary models. We conclude that many O stars and some B stars can be sources of the nonstationary X-rays formed in their inhomogeneous stellar wind.

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.

Asteroseismology of 16 Kepler Solar-like Stars:Stellar Parameters and the Effects of Element Diffusion

Element diffusion has small but significant effects on the structure of the stellar interior.It is interesting to investigate the effects of element diffusion using asteroseismology.We have constructed two grids of stellar models,one with diffusion and one without,for solar-like stars with masses between 0.9 and 1.4 solar masses,and varied initial helium abundance and metallicity.The oscillation frequencies of all stellar models have also been calculated.Piecewise Hermite cubic polynomials are adopted to interpolate stellar p-mode frequencies at an arbitrary age on a stellar evolutionary track.We have investigated 16 Kepler solar-like stars by comparing the model frequencies with observations.The suggested ranges of stellar parameters and some global variables are obtained.For all stars,the best model reproduces the observational frequencies with aχ^(2)of the order of unity.It has been found that element diffusion is important in modeling solar-like stars.Without diffusion,the best value of the initial helium abundance is below the primordial helium abundance from Big Bang nucleosynthesis.When diffusion is taken into account,the required initial helium abundance increases to be higher than the primordial abundance.Diffusion also generally improves the frequency fitting results by reducing the minimum ofχ^(2).Investigation of the second difference of the oscillation frequencies on KIC 8694723 and KIC 10454113 indicates that the current model of element diffusion may underestimate the strength of settling.

A Note on the Anti-glitch of Magnetar SGR 1935+2154

The magnetar SGR 1935+2154 is reported to have an anti-glitch,accompanied by fast radio bursts,and transient pulsed radio emission.In the wind braking model,this triplet event tells people that(1) SGR 1935+2154 does not have a strong particle wind and can be approximated by magnetic dipole braking in the persistent state;(2) its antiglitch is due to an enhanced particle wind,similar to the first anti-glitch in magnetars;(3) its transient pulsed radio emission may be due to a decreasing emission beam during the outburst;(4) the enhanced particle acceleration potential and pulsar death line may not be the dominate factor.

Probing the Internal Physics of Neutron Stars through the Observed Braking Indices and Magnetic Tilt Angles of Several Young Pulsars

The braking indices of pulsars may contain important information about the internal physics of neutron stars(NSs),such as neutron superfluidity and internal magnetic fields.As a subsequent paper of Cheng et al.,we perform the same analysis as that done in the previous paper to other young pulsars with a steady braking index,n.Combining the timing data of these pulsars with the theory of magnetic field decay,and using their measured magnetic tilt angles,we can set constraints on the number of precession cycles,ξ,which represents the interactions between superfluid neutrons and other particles in the NS interior.For the pulsars considered in this paper,the results show thatξis within the range of a few×10~3 to a few×10~6.Interestingly,for the Crab and Vela pulsars,the constraints onξobtained with our method are generally consistent with that derived from modeling of the glitch rise behaviors of the two pulsars.Furthermore,we find that the internal magnetic fields of pulsar with n<3 may be dominated by the toroidal components.Our results may not only help to understand the interactions between the superfluid neutrons and other particles in the interior of NSs but also be important for the study of continuous gravitational waves from pulsars.

Searching For Wide Binary Stars with Non-coeval Components in the Southern Sky

We have completed our observational program to search for wide binary systems with non-coeval components in the southern sky and report our results here.The final set of four systems was spectroscopically investigated in this paper.No binary systems with components of different ages were found among them.Taking into account our previous studies,we estimate the fraction of such binaries(i.e.,binaries formed,presumably,by capture)to be not higher than 0.06%.The study will be continued on the northern sky.

Sodium Abundances in Very Metal-poor Stars

Chemical composition of very metal-poor(VMP)stars can provide observational constraints on current models of nucleosynthesis and the chemical evolution of the Galaxy.It has been found that the scatter of[Na/Fe]versus[Fe/H]in VMP stars is very large in contrast with most other elements.Moreover,a negative slope in[Na/Fe]versus[Fe/H]was found for giants,which is very unlikely according to the theory of nucleosynthesis.For the sample of93 VMP stars in the metallicity range-4.25<[Fe/H]<-1.64 we obtained NLTE sodium abundances using the line profile fitting method by employing accurate atmospheric parameters determined when taking into account NLTE line formation for both FeⅠand FeⅡ.Originally selected from the LAMOST low-resolution spectral database,the spectra of stars were obtained with the High Dispersion Spectrograph of the Subaru Telescope.For 57turn-off stars in metallicity domain-3.04<[Fe/H]<-1.64,we obtained mean[Na/Fe]=-0.29±0.14 and positive slope 0.09±0.06.For 21 giants distributed over metallicity-3.59<[Fe/H]<-2.19,we found mean[Na/Fe]=-0.35±0.1 and positive slope 0.07±0.07.Our[Na/Fe]trend is lower by~0.2 dex,compared to the modern GCE model.We believe the GCE model should be adjusted,by considering the associated scatter.Twelve stars in our sample are found to be outliers,with too low or too high Na abundances.

Pulsation Analysis of High-AmplitudeδScuti Stars with TESS

In this work,the pulsation analysis is performed on 83 high-amplitudeδScuti stars(HADS),which have been observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.The results show that 49 of these HADS show single-mode pulsation,27 of them show radial double-modes pulsation(in which 22 of them pulsate with the fundamental and first overtone modes and five of them pulsate with the first and second overtone modes),and seven of them show radial triple-modes pulsation(three of which are newly confirmed triple-mode HADS).The histogram of the fundamental periods and the ratios between the fundamental and first overtone periods show bimodal structures,which might be caused by the stellar evolution in this specific phase.Most of the radial triple-mode HADS have a fundamental amplitude of 41-54 mmag,and 50%of them have similar amplitudes of the fundamental and first overtone pulsation modes.All these hints require further confirmation not only in observations with more HADS samples,but also in theoretical models with suitable treatments of stellar evolution and pulsation.

Properties of Flare Events on M Stars from LAMOST Spectral Survey Based on Kepler and TESS Light Curves

A catalog of M stars has been published from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope data release 7(LAMOST DR7).We cross-matched the LAMOST M catalog with Kepler,Kepler 2(K2)and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite(TESS)surveys.We obtained the light curves from the Kepler and TESS surveys.We detected 20,047 flare events from 4053 M stars and calculated their durations,amplitudes,and energies.We analyzed the distribution of the flare durations and energies.The distributions of flare duration for Kepler,K2 and TESS peak are at 3–3.5 hr,4–6 hr and 1–1.5 hr,respectively.This may be the result of the different cadences for the three data sets.The highest regions of the flare energies of Kepler,K2 and TESS are 32–32.5,32–32.5 and31–31.5 erg in Log format,respectively.A linear relationship between flare duration and energy emerges from our analysis.The ratio of flare duration to total observational time is approximately 0.2%–0.3%for the Kepler,K2 and TESS surveys.The occurrence rate of a star with a flare event increases from the M0 to M4 subtypes.We also determined the spatial distribution of the flare rate of M stars in the Milky Way.It seems that the flare rate decreases as the vertical height increases.The power index of the flare energies is in the region of 1.53–2.32,which is similar to previous result for solar type star(2.0).Further,we examined the relationship between the flare amplitude and chromospheric intensity.The flare activity increases rapidly with the increase in the HαEW at the lower values(less approximately 2?)and it increases slowly at the higher values.

Astrometric Reduction of Saturnian Satellites with Cassini-ISS Images Degraded by Trailed Stars

The Imaging Science Subsystem(ISS)mounted on the Cassini spacecraft has taken a lot of images,which provides an important source of high-precision astrometry of some planets and satellites.However,some of these images are degraded by trailed stars.Previously,these degraded images cannot be used for astrometry.In this paper,a new method is proposed to detect and compute the centers of these trailed stars automatically.The method is then performed on the astrometry of ISS images with trailed stars.Finally,we provided 658 astrometric positions between 2004 and 2017 of several satellites that include Enceladus,Dione,Tethys,Mimas and Rhea.Compared with the JPL ephemeris SAT427,the mean residuals of these measurements are 0.11 km and 0.26 km in R.A.and decl.,respectively.Their standard deviations are 1.08 km and 1.37 km,respectively.The results show that the proposed method performs astrometric measurements of Cassini ISS images with trailed stars effectively.