Quasars in the Galactic Anti-Center Area from LAMOST DR3

We present a sample of quasars discovered in an area near the Galactic Anti-Center covering150?≤ l ≤ 210?and |b| ≤ 30?,based on LAMOST Data Release 3(DR3).This sample contains 151 spectroscopically confirmed quasars.Among them 80 are newly discovered with LAMOST.All these quasars are very bright,with i magnitudes peaking around 17.5 mag.All the new quasars were discovered serendipitously from objects that were originally targeted with LAMOST as stars having bluer colors,except for a few candidates targeted as variable,young stellar objects.This bright quasar sample at low Galactic latitudes will help fill the gap in the spatial distribution of known quasars near the Galactic disk that are used to construct an astrometric reference frame for the purpose of accurate proper motion measurements that can be applied to,for example,Gaia.They are also excellent tracers to probe the kinematics and chemistry of the interstellar medium in the Milky Way disk and halo via absorption line spectroscopy.     

A catalogue of Hα emission-line point sources in the vicinity fields of M31 and M33 from the LAMOST survey

We present a catalogue of 3305 Hα emission-line point sources observed with the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope(LAMOST) in the vicinity fields of M31 and M33 during September 2011 and January 2016.The catalogue contains 1487 emission-line stars,532 emission-line nebulae including 377 likely planetary nebulae(PNe),83 H Ⅱ region candidates and 20 possible supernova remnants(SNRs) and 1286 unknown objects.Among them,24 PN candidates,19 H Ⅱ region candidates,10 SNR candidates and one symbiotic star candidate are new discoveries.Radial velocities and fluxes estimated from the Hα line and those quantities of seven other major emission lines including Hβ,[O Ⅲ] A4959,[O Ⅲ] A5007,[N Ⅱ] A6548,[N Ⅱ] A6583,[S Ⅱ] A6717 and [S Ⅱ] A6731 lines of all the catalogued sources yielded from the LAMOST spectra are also presented in our catalogue.Our catalogue is an ideal starting point to study the chemistry properties and kinematics of M 31 and M 33.     

A very bright (i=16.44) quasar in the ‘redshift desert’ discovered by the Guoshoujing Telescope (LAMOST)

The redshift range from 2.2 to 3 is known as the 'redshift desert' of quasars because quasars with redshifts in this range have similar optical colors as normal stars and are thus difficult to find in optical sky surveys.A quasar candidate, SDSS J085543.40001517.7, which was selected by a recently proposed criterion involving near-IR Y-K and optical g-z colors, was identified spectroscopically as a new quasar with a redshift of 2.427 by the Guoshoujing Telescope (LAMOST) commissioning observation in 2009 December and confirmed by the observation made with the NAOC/Xinglong 2.16 m telescope in 2010 March.This quasar was not identified in the SDSS spectroscopic survey.Comparing with other SDSS quasars, we found that this new quasar, with an i magnitude of 16.44, is apparently the brightest one in the redshift range from 2.3 to 2.7.From its spectral properties, we derived its central black hole mass to be (1.4～3.9)×1010 M and its bolometric luminosity to be 3.7×1048 erg s?1, which indicates that this new quasar is intrinsically very bright and belongs to the class of the most luminous quasars in the universe.Our identification supports the notion that quasars in the redshift desert can be found by the quasar selection criterion involving the near-IR colors.More missing quasars are expected to be uncovered by future LAMOST spectroscopic surveys, which is important to the study of the cosmological evolution of quasars at redshifts higher than 2.2.     

Discovery of six high-redshift quasars with the Lijiang 2.4 m telescope and the Multiple Mirror Telescope

Quasars with redshifts greater than 4 are rare, and can be used to probe the structure and evolution of the early universe. Here we report the discovery of six new quasars with i-band magnitudes brighter than 19.5 and redshifts between 2.4 and 4.6 from spectroscopy with the Yunnan Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera (YFOSC) at the Lijiang 2.4 m telescope in February, 2012. These quasars are in the list of z > 3.6 quasar candidates selected by using our proposed J K/i Y criterion and the photometric redshift estimations from the SDSS optical and UKIDSS near-IR photometric data. Nine candidates were observed by YFOSC, and five among six new quasars were identified as z > 3.6 quasars. One of the other three objects was identified as a star and the other two were unidentified due to the lower signal-to-noise ratio of their spectra. This is the first time that z > 4 quasars have been discovered using a telescope in China. Thanks to the Chinese Telescope Access Program (TAP), the redshift of 4.6 for one of these quasars was confirmed by the Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT) Red Channel spectroscopy. The continuum and emission line properties of these six quasars, as well as their central black hole masses and Eddington ratios, were obtained.     

New planetary nebulae in the outskirts of the Andromeda Galaxy discovered with the Guoshoujing Telescope (LAMOST)

Planetary nebulae (PNe) are good tracers of the stellar populations, chemical composition and dynamics of their host galaxies. This paper reports the discovery of new PNe in the outskirts of the Andromeda Galaxy (M 31) with the Guoshoujing Telescope (GSJT, formerly named the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope-LAMOST) during its early commissioning phase. In total, 36 candidates selected from SDSS photometry are confirmed in terms of their PN nature, including 17 new discoveries and an...     

A very bright (i=16.44) quasar in the ‘redshift desert' discovered by the Guoshoujing Telescope (LAMOST)

The redshift range from 2.2 to 3 is known as the ‘redshift desert' of quasars because quasars with redshifts in this range have similar optical colors as normal stars and are thus difficult to find in optical sky surveys.A quasar candidate, SDSS J085543.40001517.7, which was selected by a recently proposed criterion involving near-IR Y-K and optical g-z colors, was identified spectroscopically as a new quasar with a redshift of 2.427 by the Guoshoujing Telescope (LAMOST) commissioning observation in 2009 De...     

Kinematics and stellar population properties of the Andromeda galaxy by using the spectroscopic observations of the Guoshoujing Telescope

The Andromeda galaxy was observed by the Guoshoujing Telescope (formerly named the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope — LAMOST),during the 2009 commissioning phase.Due to the absence of standard stars for flux calibration,we use the photometric data of 15 intermediate bands in the Beijing-Arizona-Taipei-Connecticut (BATC) survey to calibrate the spectra.In total,59 spectra located in the bulge and disk of the galaxy are obtained.Kinematic and stellar population properties of the stell...     

M Dwarf catalog of LAMOST general survey data release one

We present a spectroscopic catalog of 93 619 M dwarfs from the first data release of the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope(LAMOST)general survey. During sample selection, M giant contamination was eliminated using2 MASS photometry and Ca H/TiO molecular indices. For each spectrum, the spectral subtype and values are provided including radial velocity, Hα equivalent width, a series of prominent molecular band indices, and the metal–sensitive parameter ζ, as well as distances and the space motions for high S/N objects. In addition, Hα emission lines are measured to examine the magnetic activity properties of M dwarfs and 7179 active ones are found. In particular, a subsample with significant variation in magnetic activity is revealed through observations from different epochs. Finally, statistical analysis for this sample is performed, including the metallicity classification, the distribution of molecular band indices and their errors.     

Kinematics and activity of M dwarfs in LAMOST DR1

We report on the first investigation into kinematics and chromospheric activity of M dwarfs from the Guo Shou Jing Telescope(also called the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope – LAMOST) data release one(DR1).The sample comprises 71 304 M dwarfs. Their fundamental parameters such as spectral types, radial velocities, important molecular band indices and magnetic activities are measured. Their distances are determined by a spectroscopic parallax relation.Space motion(U, V, W) and Galactocentric cylindrical coordinates(R, θ, Z) for the M dwarfs are also computed. We examine velocity dispersion as a function of height from the Galactic plane and find that all three components of velocity dispersion increase with height as measured with respect to the Galactic plane. The investigation into chromospheric activities along the height from the Galactic plane confirms that M dwarfs closer to the Galactic plane are more likely to be active. We take a pure kinematical approach to select thin disk stars and thick disk stars from our sample, then to investigate the differences in properties between these two populations. Our analysis is in excellent agreement with previous studies and leads to a better understanding of the structure of the Galactic disk.     

Searching for classical Be stars in LAMOST DR1

We report on searching for Classical B-type emission-line(CBe) stars in the first data release of the Large Sky Area Multi-Object fiber Spectroscopic Telescope(LAMOST; also called the Guo Shou Jing Telescope). A total of 192 objects(including 12 previously known CBes) were identified as CBe candidates with prominent He I λ4387, He I λ4471 and Mg II λ4481 absorption lines, as well as Hβλ4861and Hαλ6563 emission lines. These candidates significantly increase the currently known sample of CBes by about 8%. Most of the CBe candidates are distributed near the Galactic Anti-Center due to the observing strategy used for LAMOST. Only two CBes are in star clusters. These two CBes have ages of 15.8 and 398 Myr, respectively.     

Characteristics and Performance of the CCD Photometric System at Lulin Observatory

The Lulin One-meter Telescope at Lulin Observatory in Taiwan started open-use observations in January 2003. In order to evaluate the performance of the CCD photometric system, the characteristics and quality of the site, we obtained data of photometric standards as well as calibration data from February to November 2004. We report here the results of our analysis including the gain, readout noise, dark current and linearity of the CCD camera, and transformation coefficients, total throughputs, night sky brightnesses and limiting magnitudes for UBVRI bands.     

The Difference between the α-disks of Seyfert 1 Galaxiesand Quasars

In a previous paper, it was suggested that contamination of the nuclear luminosity by the host galaxy plays an important role in determining the parameters of the standard a disk of AGNs. Using the nuclear absolute B band magnitude instead of the total absolute B band magnitude, we have recalculated the central black hole masses, accretion rates and disk inclinations for 20 Seyfert 1 galaxies and 17 Palomar-Green (PG) quasars. It is found that a small value of a is needed for the Seyfert 1 galaxies than for the PG quasars. This difference in a possibly leads to the different properties of Seyfert 1 galaxies and quasars. Furthermore, we find most of the objects in this sample are not accreting at super-Eddington rates if we adopt the nuclear optical luminosity in our calculation.     

Identifying Carbon stars from the LAMOST pilot survey with the efficient manifold ranking algorithm

Carbon stars are excellent kinematic tracers of galaxies and can serve as a viable standard candle,so it is worthwhile to automatically search for them in a large amount of spectra.In this paper,we apply the efficient manifold ranking algorithm to search for carbon stars from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope(LAMOST) pilot survey,whose performance and robustness are verified comprehensively with four test experiments.Using this algorithm,we find a total of183 carbon stars,and 158 of them are new findings.According to different spectral features,our carbon stars are classified as 58 C-H stars,11 C-H star candidates,56C-R stars,ten C-R star candidates,30 C-N stars,three C-N star candidates,and four C-J stars.There are also ten objects which have no spectral type because of low spectral quality,and a composite spectrum consisting of a white dwarf and a carbon star.Applying the support vector machine algorithm,we obtain the linear optimum classification plane in the J — H versus H — K_s color diagram which can be used to distinguish C-H from C-N stars with their J — H and H — K_s colors.In addition,we identify 18 dwarf carbon stars with their relatively high proper motions,and find three carbon stars with FUV detections likely have optical invisible companions by cross matching with data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer.In the end,we detect four variable carbon stars with the Northern Sky Variability Survey,the Catalina Sky Survey and the LINEAR variability databases.According to their periods and amplitudes derived by fitting light curves with a sinusoidal function,three of them are likely semiregular variable stars and one is likely a Mira variable star.     

Measuring fiber position errors from spectral data

Precise fiber positioning is crucial to a wide field,multi-fiber spectroscopic survey such as the Guoshoujing Telescope(the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope,LAMOST).Nowadays,most position error measurements are based on CCD photographic and image processing techniques.These methods only work for measuring errors orthogonal to the telescope optical axis,but there are also errors that lie parallel to the optical axis of the telescope,such as defocusing,and errors caused by the existing deviation angle between the optical axes of a fiber and the telescope.Directly measuring the two latter types of position errors is difficult for an individual fiber,especially during observations.Possible sources of fiber position errors are discussed in brief for LAMOST.By constructing a model of magnitude loss due to the fiber position error for a point source,we propose an indirect method to calculate both the total and systematic position errors for each individual fiber from spectral data.Restrictions and applications of this method are also discussed.     

FGK 22 μm excess stars in LAMOST DR2 stellar catalog

Since the release of the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope(LAMOST)catalog, we have had the opportunity to use the LAMOST DR2 stellar catalog and the WISE All-Sky Data Release catalog to search for 22 μm excess candidates. In this paper, we present 10 FGK candidates which show an excess in the infrared at 22 μm. All the 10 sources are newly identified 22 μm excess candidates.Of these 10 stars, five stars are F type and five stars are G type. The criterion for selecting candidates is Ks[22].387. In addition, we present the spectral energy distributions covering wavelengths from the optic-≥0al to mid-infrared band. Most of them show an obvious excess from the 12 μm band and three candidates even show excess from 3.4 μm. To characterize the amount of dust, we also estimate the fractional luminosity of10 22 μm excess candidates.     

Double-lined M dwarf eclipsing binaries from Catalina Sky Survey and LAMOST

Eclipsing binaries provide a unique opportunity to determine fundamental stellar properties.In the era of wide-field cameras and all-sky imaging surveys, thousands of eclipsing binaries have been reported through light curve classification, yet their basic properties remain unexplored due to the extensive efforts needed to follow them up spectroscopically. In this paper we investigate three M2-M3 type double-lined eclipsing binaries discovered by cross-matching eclipsing binaries from the Catalina Sky Survey with spectroscopically classified M dwarfs from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope survey data release one and two. Because these three M dwarf binaries are faint, we further acquire radial velocity measurements using GMOS on the Gemini North telescope with R ~4000, enabling us to determine the mass and radius of individual stellar components. By jointly fitting the light and radial velocity curves of these systems, we derive the mass and radius of the primary and secondary components of these three systems, in the range between 0.28–0.42 M⊙and 0.29–0.67 R⊙, respectively. Future observations with a high resolution spectrograph will help us pin down the uncertainties in their stellar parameters, and render these systems benchmarks to study M dwarfs, providing inputs to improving stellar models in the low mass regime, or establishing an empirical mass-radius relation for M dwarf stars.     

Calculations for the Pre-Calibration of LAMOST Active Optics

Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (L AMOST) is one of the major on-going national large scientific projects in China. Active optics is a key technology for the LAMOST with which the thin-mirror active optics and segmented-mirror active optics are tied in. A pre-calibration method considering all active forces and displacements specially for LAMOST has been developed in early 2004. We give a detailed mathematical derivation and calculation including numerical simulation and computer program realization of the pre-calibration method of LAMOST open-loop control for the third-order as-pherical aberration. We have also carried out calculations on the application of the pre-calibration method and the parameters of actuator design in LAMOST active optics in observation mode, including estimations of the actuator ranges, the interval of active optics correction and the ranges and trends of load changes on all the actuators during LAMOST tracking a given star.     

The Feasibility of Constraining Dark Energy Using LAMOST Redshift Survey

We consider using future redshift surveys with the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) to constrain the equation of state of dark energy ω. We analyze the Alcock & Paczyriski (AP) effect imprinted on the two-point correlation function of galaxies in redshift space. The Fisher matrix analysis is applied to estimate the expected error bounds of ω0 and ωa from galaxy redshift surveys, ω0 and ωa being the two parameters in the equation of state parametrization ω(z) = ω0 + ωaz/(1 + z). Strong degeneracies between ω0 and ωa are found. The direction of the degeneracy in ω0 - ωa plane, however, rotates counter-clockwise as the redshift increases. LAMOST can potentially contribute in the redshift range up to 0.5. In combination with other high redshift surveys, such as the proposed Kilo-Aperture Optical Spectrograph project (KAOS), the joint constraint derived from galaxy surveys at different redshift ranges is likely to efficiently break the degeneracy of ω0 and ωa. We do not anticipate that the nature of dark energy can be well constrained with LAMOST alone, but it may help to reduce the error bounds expected from other observations, such as the Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP).     

A method of measuring the [α/Fe] ratios from the spectra of the LAMOST survey

The [α/Fe] ratios in stars are good tracers to probe the formation history of stellar populations and the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. The spectroscopic survey of LAMOST provides a good opportunity to determine [α/Fe] of millions of stars in the Galaxy. We present a method of measuring the [α/Fe]ratios from LAMOST spectra using the template-matching technique of the LSP3 pipeline. We use three test samples of stars selected from the ELODIE and MILES libraries, as well as the LEGUE survey to validate our method. Based on the test results, we conclude that our method is valid for measuring [α/Fe]from low-resolution spectra acquired by the LAMOST survey. Within the range of the stellar parameters Teff= [5000, 7500] K, log g = [1.0, 5.0] dex and [Fe/H]= [onsistent with values derived from high-resolution spectra,-1.5, +0.5] dex, our [α/Fe] measurements are c and the accuracy of our [α/Fe] measurements from LAMOST spectra is better than 0.1 dex with spectral signal-to-noise higher than 20.     

Discovery of 13 New Variable Stars in the Field of the Open Cluster NGC 2168 （M35）

A wide-field time-series CCD photometric survey of variable stars in the field of the open cluster NGC 2168 was carried out using the BATC Schmidt telescope. In total 13 new variable stars are discovered with three W UMa systems, one EA type and two EB type eclipsing binaries (one of them could be a W UMa system), and seven pulsating stars including three candidates of δScuti stars.