2018, Althausen, Dietrich, Hofer, Julian, Abdullaev, Sabur, Makhmudov, Abduvosit, Baars, Holger, Engelmann, Ronny, Wadinga Fomba, Khanneh, Müller, Konrad, Schettler, Georg, Klüser, Lars, Kandler, Konrad, Nicolae, D., Makoto, A., Vassilis, A., Balis, D., Behrendt, A., Comeron, A., Gibert, F., Landulfo, E., McCormick, M.P., Senff, C., Veselovskii, I., Wandinger, U.

Mineral dust needs to be characterized comprehensively since it contributes to the climate change in Tajikistan / Central Asia. Lidar results from the measurements of mineral dust during CADEX are compared with results of sun photometer measurements, satellite-based measurements, and chemical analysis of ground samples. Although the dust is often advected from far-range sources, it impacts on the local conditions considerably.

2022, Dantas, M.L.L., Guiglion, G., Smiljanic, R., Romano, D., Magrini, L., Bensby, T., Chiappini, C., Franciosini, E., Nepal, S., Tautvaišienė, G., Gilmore, G., Randich, S., Lanzafame, A.C., Heiter, U., Morbidelli, L., Prisinzano, L., Zaggia, S.

Context. Lithium (Li) is a fragile element that is produced in a variety of sites but can also be very easily depleted in stellar photospheres. Radial migration has been reported to explain the decrease in the upper envelope of Li measurements observed for relatively old metal-rich dwarf stars in some surveys. Aims. We test a scenario in which radial migration could affect the Li abundance pattern of dwarf stars in the solar neighbourhood. This may confirm that the Li abundances in these stars cannot serve as a probe for the Li abundance in the interstellar medium (ISM). In other words, to probe the evolution of the Li abundance in the local ISM, it is crucial that stellar intruders be identified and removed from the adopted sample. Methods. We used the high-quality data (including Li abundances) from the sixth internal Data Release of the Gaia-ESO survey. In this sample we grouped stars by similarity in chemical abundances via hierarchical clustering. Our analysis treats both measured Li abundances and upper limits. Results. The Li envelope of the previously identified radially migrated stars is well below the benchmark meteoritic value (<3.26 dex); the star with the highest detected abundance has A(Li) = 2.76 dex. This confirms the previous trends observed for old dwarf stars (median ages ~ 8 Gyr), where Li decreases for [Fe/H] ≳ 0. Conclusions. This result is supporting evidence that the abundance of Li measured in the upper envelope of old dwarf stars should not be considered a proxy for the ISM Li. Our scenario also indicates that the stellar yields for [M/H] >0 should not be decreased, as recently proposed in the literature. Our study backs recent studies that claim that old dwarfs on the hot side of the dip are efficient probes of the ISM abundance of Li, provided atomic diffusion does not significantly lower the initial Li abundance in the atmospheres of metal-rich objects.

2018, Webb, N.A., Schwope, A., Zolotukhin, I., Lin, D., Rosen, S.R.

Context. X-ray catalogues provide a wealth of information on many source types, ranging from compact objects to galaxies, clusters of galaxies, stars, and even planets. Thanks to the huge volume of X-ray sources provided in the 3XMM catalogue, along with many source specific products, many new examples from rare classes of sources can be identified. Aims. Through visualising spectra and lightcurves from about 80 observations included in the incremental part of the 3XMM catalogue, 3XMM-DR5, as part of the quality control of the catalogue, we identified two new X-ray sources, 3XMM J183333.1+225136 and 3XMM J184916.1+652943, that were highly variable. This work aims to investigate their nature. Methods. Through simple model fitting of the X-ray spectra and analysis of the X-ray lightcurves of 3XMM J183333.1+225136 and 3XMM J184916.1+652943, along with complementary photometry from the XMM-Newton Optical Monitor, Pan-STARRS and the Stella/WiFSIP and Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) spectra, we suggest that the two sources might be magnetic cataclysmic variables (CVs) of the polar type and we determine some of their properties. Results. Both CVs have very hard spectra, showing no soft excess. They are both situated in the local neighbourhood, located within ∼1 kpc. 3XMM J183333.1+225136 has an orbital period of 2.15 h. It shows features in the lightcurve that may be a total eclipse of the white dwarf. 3XMM J184916.1+652943 has an orbital period of 1.6 h. Given that only a small sky area was searched to identify these CVs, future sensitive all sky surveys such as the eROSITA project should be very successful at uncovering large numbers of such sources.

2022, Baroch, D., Giménez, A., Morales, J. C., Ribas, I., Herrero, E., Perdelwitz, V., Jordi, C., Granzer, T., Allende Prieto, C.

Context. Double-lined eclipsing binaries allow the direct determination of masses and radii, which are key for testing stellar models. With the launch of the TESS mission, many well-known eclipsing binaries have been observed at higher photometric precision, permitting the improvement of the absolute dimension determinations. Aims. Using TESS data and newly obtained spectroscopic observations, we aim to determine the masses and radii of the eccentric eclipsing binary systems V889 Aql and V402 Lac, together with their apsidal motion parameters. Methods. We simultaneously modelled radial velocity curves and times of eclipse for each target to precisely determine the orbital parameters of the systems, which we used to analyse the light curves and then obtain their absolute dimensions. We compared the obtained values with those predicted by theoretical models. Results. We determined masses and radii of the components of both systems with relative uncertainties lower than 2%. V889 Aql is composed of two stars with masses 2:17±0:02 M⊙ and 2:13±0:01 M⊙ and radii 1:87±0:04 R⊙ and 1:85±0:04 R⊙.We find conclusive evidence of the presence of a third body orbiting V889 Aql with a period of 67 yr. Based on the detected third light and the absence of signal in the spectra, we suggest that this third body could in turn be a binary composed of two ±1.4 M⊙ stars. V402 Lac is composed of two stars with masses 2:80 ± 0:05 M⊙ and 2:78 ± 0:05 M⊙ and radii 2:38 ± 0:03 R⊙ and 2:36 ± 0:03 R⊙. The times of minimum light are compatible with the presence of a third body for this system too, although its period is not yet fully sampled. In both cases we have found a good agreement between the observed apsidal motion rates and the model predictions.

2017, Michel, Eric, Belkacem, Kevin, Samadi, Reza, de Assis Peralta, Raphael, Renié, Christian, Abed, Mahfoudh, Lin, Guangyuan, Christensen-Dalsgaard, Jørgen, Houdek, Günter, Handberg, Rasmus, Gizon, Laurent, Burston, Raymond, Nagashima, Kaori, Pallé, Pere, Poretti, Ennio, Rainer, Monica, Mistò, Angelo, Panzera, Maria Rosa, Roth, Markus, Monteiro, Mário J. P. F. G., Cunha, Margarida S., Ferreira, João Miguel T. S.

The growing amount of seismic data available from space missions (SOHO, CoRoT, Kepler, SDO,…) but also from ground-based facilities (GONG, BiSON, ground-based large programmes…), stellar modelling and numerical simulations, creates new scientific perspectives such as characterizing stellar populations in our Galaxy or planetary systems by providing model-independent global properties of stars such as mass, radius, and surface gravity within several percent accuracy, as well as constraints on the age. These applications address a broad scientific community beyond the solar and stellar one and require combining indices elaborated with data from different databases (e.g. seismic archives and ground-based spectroscopic surveys). It is thus a basic requirement to develop a simple and effcient access to these various data resources and dedicated tools. In the framework of the European project SpaceInn (FP7), several data sources have been developed or upgraded. The Seismic Plus Portal has been developed, where synthetic descriptions of the most relevant existing data sources can be found, as well as tools allowing to localize existing data for given objects or period and helping the data query. This project has been developed within the Virtual Observatory (VO) framework. In this paper, we give a review of the various facilities and tools developed within this programme. The SpaceInn project (Exploitation of Space Data for Innovative Helio- and Asteroseismology) has been initiated by the European Helio- and Asteroseismology Network (HELAS).

2019, Katz, D., Sartoretti, P., Cropper, M., Panuzzo, P., Seabroke, G.M., Viala, Y., Benson, K., Blomme, R., Jasniewicz, G., Jean-Antoine, A., Huckle, H., Smith, M., Baker, S., Crifo, F., Damerdji, Y., David, M., Dolding, C., Frémat, Y., Gosset, E., Guerrier, A., Guy, L. P., Haigron, R., Janßen, K., Marchal, O., Plum, G., Soubiran, C., Thévenin, F., Ajaj, M., Allende Prieto, C., Babusiaux, C., Boudreault, S., Chemin, L., Delle Luche, C., Fabre, C., Gueguen, A., Hambly, N. C., Lasne, Y., Meynadier, F., Pailler, F., Panem, C., Royer, F., Tauran, G., Zurbach, C., Zwitter, T., Arenou, F., Bossini, D., Gerssen, J., Gómez, A., Lemaitre, V., Leclerc, N., Morel, T., Munari, U., Turon, C., Vallenari, A., Žerjal, M.

Context. For Gaia DR2, 280 million spectra collected by the Radial Velocity Spectrometer instrument on board Gaia were processed, and median radial velocities were derived for 9.8 million sources brighter than GRVS = 12 mag. Aims. This paper describes the validation and properties of the median radial velocities published in Gaia DR2. Methods. Quality tests and filters were applied to select those of the 9.8 million radial velocities that have the quality to be published in Gaia DR2. The accuracy of the selected sample was assessed with respect to ground-based catalogues. Its precision was estimated using both ground-based catalogues and the distribution of the Gaia radial velocity uncertainties. Results. Gaia DR2 contains median radial velocities for 7 224 631 stars, with Teff in the range [3550; 6900] K, which successfully passed the quality tests. The published median radial velocities provide a full-sky coverage and are complete with respect to the astrometric data to within 77.2% (for G ≤ 12:5 mag). The median radial velocity residuals with respect to the ground-based surveys vary from one catalogue to another, but do not exceed a few 100 m s-1. In addition, the Gaia radial velocities show a positive trend as a function of magnitude, which starts around GRVS ∼ 9 mag and reaches about +500 m s-1 at GRVS = 11:75 mag. The origin of the trend is under investigation, with the aim to correct for it in Gaia DR3. The overall precision, estimated from the median of the Gaia radial velocity uncertainties, is 1.05 km s-1. The radial velocity precision is a function of many parameters, in particular, the magnitude and effective temperature. For bright stars, GRVS 2 [4; 8] mag, the precision, estimated using the full dataset, is in the range 220-350 m s-1, which is about three to five times more precise than the pre-launch specification of 1 km s-1. At the faint end, GRVS = 11:75 mag, the precisions for Teff = 5000 and 6500 K are 1.4 and 3.7 km s-1, respectively.

2022, Micheva, Genoveva, Roth, Martin M., Weilbacher, Peter M., Morisset, Christophe, Castro, Norberto, Monreal Ibero, Ana, Soemitro, Azlizan A., Maseda, Michael V., Steinmetz, Matthias, Brinchmann, Jarle

Context. There are known differences between the physical properties of H II and diffuse ionized gas (DIG). However, most of the studied regions in the literature are relatively bright, with log10 L(Hα)[erg s-1] ≳37. Aims. We compiled an extremely faint sample of 390 H II regions with a median Hα luminosity of 34.7 in the flocculent spiral galaxy NGC 300, derived their physical properties in terms of metallicity, density, extinction, and kinematics, and performed a comparative analysis of the properties of the DIG. Methods. We used MUSE data of nine fields in NGC 300, covering a galactocentric distance of zero to ~450 arcsec (~4 projected kpc), including spiral arm and inter-arm regions. We binned the data in dendrogram leaves and extracted all strong nebular emission lines. We identified H II and DIG regions and compared their electron densities, metallicity, extinction, and kinematic properties. We also tested the effectiveness of unsupervised machine-learning algorithms in distinguishing between the H II and DIG regions. Results. The gas density in the H II and DIG regions is close to the low-density limit in all fields. The average velocity dispersion in the DIG is higher than in the H II regions, which can be explained by the DIG being 1.8 kK hotter than H II gas. The DIG manifests a lower ionization parameter than H II gas, and the DIG fractions vary between 15-77%, with strong evidence of a contribution by hot low-mass evolved stars and shocks to the DIG ionization. Most of the DIG is consistent with no extinction and an oxygen metallicity that is indistinguishable from that of the H II gas. We observe a flat metallicity profile in the central region of NGC 300, without a sign of a gradient. Conclusions. The differences between extremely faint H II and DIG regions follow the same trends and correlations as their much brighter cousins. Both types of objects are so heterogeneous, however, that the differences within each class are larger than the differences between the two classes.

2021, Matas Pinto, A. M., Spite, M., Caffau, E., Bonifacio, P., Sbordone, L., Sivarani, T., Steffen, M., Spite, F., François, P., Di Matteo, P.

Context. The study of old, metal-poor stars deepens our knowledge on the early stages of the universe. In particular, the study of these stars gives us a valuable insight into the masses of the first massive stars and their emission of ionising photons. Aims. We present a detailed chemical analysis and determination of the kinematic and orbital properties of a sample of 11 dwarf stars. These are metal-poor stars, and a few of them present a low lithium content. We inspected whether the other elements also present anomalies. Methods. We analysed the high-resolution UVES spectra of a few metal-poor stars using the Turbospectrum code to synthesise spectral lines profiles. This allowed us to derive a detailed chemical analysis of Fe, C, Li, Na, Mg, Al, Si, CaI, CaII, ScII, TiII, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Sr, and Ba. Results. We find excellent coherence with the reference metal-poor First Stars sample. The lithium-poor stars do not present any anomaly of the abundance of the elements other than lithium. Among the Li-poor stars, we show that CS 22882-027 is very probably a blue-straggler. The star CS 30302-145, which has a Li abundance compatible with the plateau, has a very low Si abundance and a high Mn abundance. In many aspects, it is similar to the α-poor star HE 1424-0241, but it is less extreme. It could have been formed in a satellite galaxy and later been accreted by our Galaxy. This hypothesis is also supported by its kinematics.

2021, Predehl, P., Andritschke, R., Arefiev, V., Babyshkin, V., Batanov, O., Becker, W., Böhringer, H., Bogomolov, A., Boller, T., Borm, K., Bornemann, W., Bräuninger, H., Brüggen, M., Brunner, H., Brusa, M., Bulbul, E., Buntov, M., Burwitz, V., Burkert, W., Clerc, N., Churazov, E., Coutinho, D., Dauser, T., Dennerl, K., Doroshenko, V., Eder, J., Emberger, V., Eraerds, T., Finoguenov, A., Freyberg, M., Friedrich, P., Friedrich, S., Fürmetz, M., Georgakakis, A., Gilfanov, M., Granato, S., Grossberger, C., Gueguen, A., Gureev, P., Haberl, F., Hälker, O., Hartner, G., Hasinger, G., Huber, H., Ji, L., Kienlin, A. v., Kink, W., Korotkov, F., Kreykenbohm, I., Lamer, G., Lomakin, I., Lapshov, I., Liu, T., Maitra, C., Meidinger, N., Menz, B., Merloni, A., Mernik, T., Mican, B., Mohr, J., Müller, S., Nandra, K., Nazarov, V., Pacaud, F., Pavlinsky, M., Perinati, E., Pfeffermann, E., Pietschner, D., Ramos-Ceja, M. E., Rau, A., Reiffers, J., Reiprich, T. H., Robrade, J., Salvato, M., Sanders, J., Santangelo, A., Sasaki, M., Scheuerle, H., Schmid, C., Schmitt, J., Schwope, A., Shirshakov, A., Steinmetz, M., Stewart, I., Strüder, L., Sunyaev, R., Tenzer, C., Tiedemann, L., Trümper, J., Voron, V., Weber, P., Wilms, J., Yaroshenko, V.

eROSITA (extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array) is the primary instrument on the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) mission, which was successfully launched on July 13, 2019, from the Baikonour cosmodrome. After the commissioning of the instrument and a subsequent calibration and performance verification phase, eROSITA started a survey of the entire sky on December 13, 2019. By the end of 2023, eight complete scans of the celestial sphere will have been performed, each lasting six months. At the end of this program, the eROSITA all-sky survey in the soft X-ray band (0.2-2.3 keV) will be about 25 times more sensitive than the ROSAT All-Sky Survey, while in the hard band (2.3-8 keV) it will provide the first ever true imaging survey of the sky. The eROSITA design driving science is the detection of large samples of galaxy clusters up to redshifts z > 1 in order to study the large-scale structure of the universe and test cosmological models including Dark Energy. In addition, eROSITA is expected to yield a sample of a few million AGNs, including obscured objects, revolutionizing our view of the evolution of supermassive black holes. The survey will also provide new insights into a wide range of astrophysical phenomena, including X-ray binaries, active stars, and diffuse emission within the Galaxy. Results from early observations, some of which are presented here, confirm that the performance of the instrument is able to fulfil its scientific promise. With this paper, we aim to give a concise description of the instrument, its performance as measured on ground, its operation in space, and also the first results from in-orbit measurements.

2022, Graczyk, D., Pietrzyński, G., Galan, C., Southworth, J., Gieren, W., Kałuszyński, M., Zgirski, B., Gallenne, A., Górski, M., Hajdu, G., Karczmarek, P., Kervella, P., Maxted, P. F. L., Nardetto, N., Narloch, W., Pilecki, B., Pych, W., Rojas Garcia, G., Storm, J., Suchomska, K., Taormina, M., Wielgórski, P.

Aims. Surface brightness - colour relations (SBCRs) are very useful tools for predicting the angular diameters of stars. They offer the possibility to calculate very precise spectrophotometric distances by the eclipsing binary method or the Baade-Wesselink method. Double-lined Detached Eclipsing Binary stars (SB2 DEBs) with precisely known trigonometric parallaxes allow for a calibration of SBCRs with unprecedented precision. In order to improve such calibrations, it is important to enlarge the calibration sample of suitable eclipsing binaries with very precisely determined physical parameters. Methods. We carefully chose a sample of ten SB2 DEBs in the solar neighbourhood which contain inactive main-sequence components. The components have spectral types from early A to early K. All systems have high-precision parallaxes from the Gaia mission. We analysed high precision ground- and space-based photometry simultaneously with the radial velocity curves derived from HARPS spectra. We used spectral disentangling to obtain the individual spectra of the components and used these to derive precise atmospheric parameters and chemical abundances. For almost all components, we derived precise surface temperatures and metallicities. Results. We derived absolute dimensions for 20 stars with an average precision of 0.2% and 0.5% for masses and radii, respectively. Three systems show slow apsidal motion. One system, HD 32129, is most likely a triple system with a much fainter K6V companion. Also three systems contain metallic-line components and show strong enhancements of barium and ittrium. Conclusions. The components of all systems compare well to the SBCR derived before from the detached eclipsing binary stars. With a possible exception of HD 32129, they can be used to calibrate SBCRs with a precision better than 1% with available Gaia DR3 parallaxes.