星流的搜寻

在冷暗物质的宇宙学模型框架里,银河系(尤其是银晕)至少部分起源于对周围卫星星系的吸积。随着新技术和新设备的不断应用,大规模巡天项目的成功实施使天文学家获得了越来越多、越来越全面的关于银河系的数据。通过对这些数据进行分析,天文学家发现了很多星流的候选体,为银河系的等级并合理论提供了观测上的证据。随着对星流研究的扩大和深入,人们对银河系及其结构和起源的了解也越来越详细。介绍了搜寻星流的方法,以及基于这些方法获得的星流研究结果。     

Superassociations and Stellar Complexes in Galaxies

The basic characteristics of stellar complexes and superassociations, as well as the differences between these kinds of gigantic groups of young stars, are discussed. The main difference is that superassociations are the result of induced (triggered) star formation, while the stars and clusters in stellar complexes develop as a result of the spontaneous processes typical of galactic gaseous disks.     

OPAL不透明度对恒星结构和演化模型的影响

本文利用国际上最新公布的OPAL不透明度表及相应的化学丰度，计算了三颗不同初始质量的星族互恒星的非守恒演化模型，并和过去长期采用的LAOL不透明度的结果进行详细比较，得出以下主要结论：（1）恒星HR图中的演化轨迹光度降低，主序位置明显向红方向移动；（2）恒星中心H，He燃烧寿命大大延长了；（3）小质量星氢燃烧核和对流核都变小，大、中质量星的中心对流核和燃烧核都有所增大；（4）恒星中心温度－密度关系基本不受影响．     

Stellar Motions in Galactic Satellites

The study of the motions of the stars that belong to a galactic satellite (i.e. a globular cluster or a dwarf galaxy orbiting a larger one) has some similarities, as well as significant differences, with that of the restricted three-body problem of celestial mechanics. The high percentage of chaotic orbits present in some models is of particular interest because it rises, on the one hand, the question of the origin of those chaotic motions and, on the other hand, the question of whether an equilibrium stellar system can be built when the bulk of the stars that make it up behave chaotically.     

Spatial Structure of Regular and Chaotic Orbits in A Self-Consistent Triaxial Stellar System

We created a triaxial stellar system through the cold dissipationless collapse of 100,000 particles whose evolution was followed with a multipolar code. Once an equilibrium system had been obtained, the multipolar expansion was freezed and smoothed in order to get a stationary smooth potential. The resulting model was self-consistent and the orbits and Lyapunov exponents could then be computed for a randomly selected sample of 3472 of the bodies that make up the system. More than half of the orbits (52.7 % ) turned out to be chaotic. Regular orbits were then classified using the frequency analysis automatic code of Carpintero and Aguilar (1998, MNRAS 298(1), 1–21). We present plots of the distributions of the different kinds of orbits projected on the symmetry planes of the system. We distinguish chaotic orbits with only one non-zero Lyapunov exponent from those with two non-zero exponents and show that their spatial distributions differ, that of the former being more similar to the one of the regular orbits. Most of the regular orbits are boxes and boxlets, but the minor axis tubes play an important role filling in the wasp waists of the boxes and helping to give a lentil shape to the system. We see no problem in building stable triaxial models with substantial amounts of chaotic orbits; the difficulties found by other authors may be due not to a physical cause but to a limitation of Schwarzschild’s method.     

Stellar Populations in Bulges of Spiral Galaxies

We present a few results of a work in progress tackling the radial spectroscopic properties of bulges of spiral galaxies. This revised version was published online in September 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Cannon:一种基于光谱数据的恒星参数测量方法

新一代大规模光谱巡天项目产生了近千万条低分辨率恒星光谱,基于这些光谱数据,介绍一种名为The Cannon的机器学习方法。该方法完全基于已知恒星大气参数(有效温度、表面重力加速度和金属丰度等)的光谱数据,通过数据驱动来构建特征向量,建立光谱流量特征和恒星参数的函数对应关系,进而应用到观测光谱数据中,实现对恒星光谱的大气参数求解。The Cannon的主要优势为不直接基于任何恒星物理模型,适用性更广;由于使用了全谱信息,即便对于低信噪比光谱也能得到较高可信度的参数结果,该算法在大规模恒星光谱的数据处理和参数求解方面具有明显的优势。此外,还利用The Cannon得到LAMOST光谱数据中K巨星和M巨星的恒星参数。     

Stellar populations in the Canis Major overdensity

We performed a photometric multicolour survey of the core of the Canis Major overdensity at     , reaching   V ∼ 22  and covering  0.3 × 1.0  arcmin². The main aim is to unravel the complex mixture of stellar populations toward this Galactic direction, where in the recent past important signatures of an accretion event have been claimed to be detected. While our previous investigations were based on disjointed pointings aimed at revealing the large-scale structure of the third Galactic Quadrant, we now focus on a complete coverage of a smaller field centred on the Canis Major overdensity. A large wavelength baseline, in the UBVRI bands, allows us to build up a suite of colour–colour and colour–magnitude diagrams, providing a much better diagnostic tool to disentangle the stellar populations of the region. In fact, the simple use of one colour–magnitude diagram, widely employed in all the previous studies defending the existence of the Canis Major galaxy, does not allow one to separate the effects of the different parameters (reddening, age, metallicity and distance) involved in the interpretation of data, forcing to rely on heavy modelling. In agreement with our previous studies, in the same general region of the Milky Way, we recognize a young stellar population compatible with the expected structure and extension of the Local (Orion) and Outer (Norma–Cygnus) spiral arms in the Third Galactic Quadrant. Moreover, we interpret the conspicuous intermediate-age metal-poor population as belonging to the Galactic thick disc, distorted by the effect of strong disc warping at this latitude, and to the Galactic halo.     

Galactic and Stellar Dynamics: Limits and Perspectives

An elementary review about stellar and galactic dynamics is presented. Despite involving extremely classical Newtonian physics, stellar dynamics presents some fundamental difficulties rarely discussed in the literature, such as why the phase space distribution is assumed to be a smooth function of coordinates. Many systems are found to be unstable over intermediate time-scales, as more instabilities have been discovered over the years, so the old aim of describing equilibrium stable systems shifts presently toward understanding evolutive systems. From the linearized variational Boltzmann equation a distinction can be made between instabilities triggered by the chaotic part of phase space, and instabilities caused by steep gradients in the velocity part of the distribution function. The new challenges to include evolutive systems can presently only be studied efficiently with computer techniques. Future studies are likely to involve orders of magnitude more advanced computers in which parallelism will play a major role. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Algorithms for Stellar Perturbation Computations on Oort Cloud Comets

We investigate different approximate methods of computing the perturbations on the orbits of Oort cloud comets caused by passing stars, by checking them against an accurate numerical integration using Everhart’s RA15 code. The scenario under study is the one relevant for long-term simulations of the cloud’s response to a predefined set of stellar passages. Our sample of stellar encounters simulates those experienced by the Solar System currently, but extrapolated over a time of 10¹⁰ years. We measure the errors of perihelion distance perturbations for high-eccentricity orbits introduced by several estimators – including the classical impulse approximation and Dybczyński’s (1994, Celest. Mech. Dynam. Astron. 58, 1330–1338) method – and we study how they depend on the encounter parameters (approach distance and relative velocity). We introduce a sequential variant of Dybczyński’s approach, cutting the encounter into several steps whereby the heliocentric motion of the comet is taken into account. For the scenario at hand this is found to offer an efficient means to obtain accurate results for practically any domain of the parameter space.     

电荷屏蔽与恒星内部β衰变

针对低能反应和Gamow-Teller共振跃迁,分析了在恒星内部电荷屏蔽对β衰变率的影响,对共振跃迁的分析是基于核的壳层模型．作为例子,详细计算了电荷屏蔽对56Cr的β衰变的影响．结果表明:在较低温度和高密度下,电荷屏蔽使β衰变率有明显地增加．这对恒星晚期演化和超新星爆发研究可能会有重要的影响．     

库仑耦合效应对类太阳恒星模型的影响

物态方程一直是恒星模型理论研究中的最重要的物理方程之一，对于日震学等高精度要求的研究领域来讲，只包含理想效应的物态方程并不能满足研究需要，而要更细致、包含非理想效应的物态方程对系统作更精确和完善的描述，在弱耦合及弱电子简并的系统中，为研究各种带电粒子之间的库仑耦合效应，以化学图像为基础，分别用具有硬核改正的Debye—Hueckel扩展理论来处理离子-电子作用、多体作用的经典点粒子相互作用理论描述离子-离子作用和量子统计方法处理电子-电子作用，并把此3种作用对物态方程自由能的贡献用半解析的数学公式给出，为适应日震学研究的要求，特别选取一组类太阳的恒星模型作为研究对象，从实际模型计算出发，对库仑耦合中的各种效应进行了比较分析，讨论并检验了所作的理论改进。     

The Effect of Method of Constructing the Mass Distribution on Single Stellar Populations

We use two methods of constructing the initial mass distribution, the traditional way and Monte Carlo simulation, to obtain integrated U - B, B - V, V-R and V-I colours and absorption-line indices denned by the Lick Observatory image dissector scanner (referred to as Lick/IDS), for instantaneous burst solarmetallicity single stellar populations with ages in the range 1-15 Gyr. We find that the evolutionary curves of all colours obtained by the traditional method are smoother than those by Monte Carlo simulation, that the U - B and B - V colours obtained by the two methods agree with one another, while the V - R and V - I colours by the traditional method are bluer than those by Monte Carlo simulation. A comparison of the Lick/IDS absorption-line indices shows that the variations in all the indices by the traditional method are smoother than that for the Monte Carlo simulation, and that all the indices except for TiO1 and TiO2 are consistent with those for the Monte Carlo simulation.     

The Stellar Content of Active Galaxies

We present the results of a long-slit spectroscopic study of 38 active and four normal galaxies. Stellar absorption features, continuum colours and their radial variations are analysed in an effort to characterize the stellar population in these galaxies and detect the presence of a featureless continuum underlying the starlight spectral component. Spatial variations of the equivalent widths of conspicuous absorption lines and continuum colours are detected in most galaxies. Star-forming rings, in particular, leave clear fingerprints in the equivalent widths and colour profiles. We find that the stellar populations in the inner regions of active galaxies present a variety of characteristics, and cannot be represented by a single starlight template. Dilution of the stellar lines by an underlying featureless continuum is detected in most broad-lined objects, but little or no dilution is found for most of the 20 type 2 Seyferts in the sample. Colour gradients are also ubiquitous. In particular, all but one of the observed Seyfert 2s are redder at the nucleus than in its immediate vicinity. Possible consequences of these findings are briefly outlined.     

Stellar dynamics in razor-thin discs with massive nuclear black holes

The bifurcations of orbit-averaged dynamics are studied in a class of razor-thin discs with central black holes. The model used here consists of a perturbed harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian augmented with a GM r potential. Through a sequence of conformal and canonical transformations, we reduce the phase-space flows of the system to a set of non-linear differential equations on a sphere. Based on the critical points of the averaged system, we classify orbit families and reveal the existence of six types of periodic motions: circular , long - and short-axis elliptical , long - and short-axis radial and inclined radial orbits. Long-axis elliptical orbits and their surrounding tubes have significant features: whilst they keep stars away from the centre, they elongate in the same direction as the density profile. These properties are helpful in the construction of self-consistent equilibria.     

天文学研究发展趋势分析--恒星与恒星系统

对在1981-2000年世界上所发表的和中国学者所发表的有关恒星与恒星系统的论文作统计发现：此期间世界上这一领域的发展较平稳，而我国的发展快速．这反映了改革开放后，我国基础学科研究大有进展．从各分支所占的比重和发展来看，我国在恒星与恒星系统的研究与世界同期有几乎相同的分布，因此总体上我国在这一领域的发展基本正常．当然有些分支发展较快，如有关超新星及其遗迹、星际介质和恒星形成区、化学丰度的研究等，这和一些较强的研究团组形成有关；在双星研究方面，我国则与世界发展一致，双星研究始终是恒星研究领域的重点；而在世界范围内较突出的关于银河系的研究，在我国却相对较弱．恒星和恒星系统这一研究领域20年的论文数统计显示，我国学者所发表的论文只占世界总论文数的1．3％，虽然在最后5年有大幅上升，但也只占2．0％，这与我国IAU会员数所占比例相比是偏少的．就世界整体而言，恒星领域的研究进展与整个天文学领域相比是较慢的，显然这与一批能做深空探测和高能波段观测的设备投入有关．因此，除了对恒星及恒星系统领域作统计分析外，对整个天文学领域各大分支作分析可能对制定今后我国天文学发展计划更有利。