Element spots in Ap and Hg‐Mn stars from current‐driven diffusion

The stars of the middle main sequence often have spot‐like chemical structures at their surfaces. We consider the diffusion process caused by electric currents that can lead to the formation of such chemical spots. Diffusion is considered using the partial momentum equations derived by the Chapman‐Enskog method. We argue that diffusion caused by electric currents can substantially change the surface chemistry of stars and form spotted chemical structures even in a relatively weak magnetic field. The considered mechanism can be responsible for a formation of element spots in Hg‐Mn and Ap‐stars. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The effect of turbulent mixing on the g‐mode spectrum of MS stars

Understanding transport processes inside stars is one of the main goals of asteroseismology. Chemical turbulent mixing can affect the internal distribution of μ near the energy generating core, having an effect on the evolutionary tracks similar to that of overshooting. This mixing leads to a smoother chemical composition profile near the edge of the convective core, which is reflected in the behavior of the buoyancy frequency and, therefore, in the frequencies of gravity modes. We describe the effects of convective overshooting and turbulent mixing on the frequencies of gravity modes in B‐type main sequence stars. In particular, the cases of p‐g mixed modes in β Cep stars and high‐order modes in SPBs are considered. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Gravity modes and mixed modes as probes of stellar cores in main‐sequence stars: From solar‐like to β Cep stars

We investigate how the frequencies of gravity modes depend on the detailed properties of the chemical composition gradient that develops near the core of main‐sequence stars and, therefore, on the transport processes that are able to modify the μ profile in the central regions. We show that in main‐sequence models, similarly to the case of white dwarfs, the periods of high‐order gravity modes are accurately described by a uniform period spacing superposed to an oscillatory component. The periodicity and amplitude of such a component are related, respectively, to the location and sharpness of the μ gradient. We briefly discuss and interpret, by means of this simple approximation, the effect of turbulent mixing near the core on the periods of both high‐order and low‐order g modes, as well as of modes of mixed pressure‐gravity character. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

How to drive roAp stars

Rapidly oscillating Ap stars constitute a unique class of pulsators with which to study non-radial oscillations under some — even for stars — unusual physical conditions. These stars are chemically peculiar, they have strong magnetic fields and they often pulsate in several high-order acoustic modes simultaneously. We discuss here an excitation mechanism for short-period oscillation modes based on the classical κ mechanism. We particularly stress the conditions that must be fulfilled for successful driving. Specifically, we discuss the roles of the chemical peculiarity and strong magnetic field on the oscillation modes and what separates these pulsators from δ Scuti and Am-type stars.     

Light‐induced drift for Hg isotopes in chemically peculiar stars

In the present paper the abundance anomalies of mercury and its isotopes in the atmospheres of HgMn stars have been studied. Observations have shown strongly anomalous isotopic composition of Hg, Pt, Tl and He in the atmospheres of such CP stars. Generation of elemental abundance anomalies in quiescent atmospheres of CP stars can generally be explained by the mechanism of diffusive segregation of elements due to oppositely directed gravitational and radiative forces. It has been shown that the formation of the observed isotopic anomalies can be successfully explained by a diffusion mechanism called the light‐induced drift (LID). The observed ratios of isotopes also enable to estimate the evolutionary stages of CP stars.     

Chemical composition of a sample of bright solar‐metallicity stars

We present a detailed analysis of seven young stars observed with the spectrograph SOPHIE at the Observatoire de Haute‐Provence for which the chemical composition was incomplete or absent in the literature. For five stars, we derived the stellar parameters and chemical compositions using our automatic pipeline optimized for F, G, and K stars, while for the other two stars with high rotational velocity, we derived the stellar parameters by using other information (parallax), and performed a line‐by‐line analysis. Chromospheric emission‐line fluxes from Caii are obtained for all targets. The stellar parameters we derive are generally in good agreement with what is available in the literature. We provide a chemical analysis of two of the stars for the first time. The star HIP 80124 shows a strong Li feature at 670.8 nm implying a high lithium abundance. Its chemical pattern is not consistent with it being a solar sibling, as has been suggested. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Seismic signatures of strange stars with crust

We study acoustic oscillations (eigenfrequencies, velocity distributions, damping times) of normal crusts of strange stars. These oscillations are very specific because of huge density jump at the interface between the normal crust and the strange matter core. The oscillation problem is shown to be self-similar. For a low (but non-zero) multipolarity l , the fundamental mode (without radial nodes) has a frequency of ∼300 Hz and mostly horizontal oscillation velocity; other pressure modes have frequencies ≳20 kHz and almost radial oscillation velocities. The latter modes are similar to radial oscillations (having approximately the same frequencies and radial velocity profiles). The oscillation spectrum of strange stars with crust differs from the spectrum of neutron stars. If detected, acoustic oscillations would allow one to discriminate between strange stars with crust and neutron stars and constrain the mass and radius of the star.     

On the properties of strange modes

Properties of the so-called strange modes occurring in linear stability calculations of stellar models are discussed. The behaviour of these modes is compared for two different sets of stellar models, for very massive zero-age main-sequence stars and for luminous hydrogen-deficient stars, both with high luminosity-to-mass ratios. We have found that the peculiar behaviour of the frequencies of the strange modes with the change of a control parameter is caused by the pulsation amplitude of a particular eigenmode being strongly confined to the outer part of the envelope, around the density inversion zone. The frequency of a strange mode changes because the depth of the confinement zone changes with the control parameter. Weakly non-adiabatic strange modes tend to be overstable because the amplitude confinement quenches the effect of radiative damping. On the other hand, extremely non-adiabatic strange modes become overstable because the perturbation of radiation force (gradient of radiation pressure) provides a restoring force that can be out of phase with the density perturbation. We discuss this mechanism by using a plane-parallel two-zone model.     

Torsional oscillations of magnetized relativistic stars

Strong magnetic fields in relativistic stars can be a cause of crust fracturing, resulting in the excitation of global torsional oscillations. Such oscillations could become observable in gravitational waves or in high-energy radiation, thus becoming a tool for probing the equation of state of relativistic stars. As the eigenfrequency of torsional oscillation modes is affected by the presence of a strong magnetic field, we study torsional modes in magnetized relativistic stars. We derive the linearized perturbation equations that govern torsional oscillations coupled to the oscillations of a magnetic field, when variations in the metric are neglected (Cowling approximation). The oscillations are described by a single two-dimensional wave equation, which can be solved as a boundary-value problem to obtain eigenfrequencies. We find that, in the non-magnetized case, typical oscillation periods of the fundamental     torsional modes can be nearly a factor of 2 larger for relativistic stars than previously computed in the Newtonian limit. For magnetized stars, we show that the influence of the magnetic field is highly dependent on the assumed magnetic field configuration, and simple estimates obtained previously in the literature cannot be used for identifying normal modes observationally.     

Stellar archaeology: Exploring the Universe with metal‐poor stars

The abundance patterns of the most metal‐poor stars in the Galactic halo and small dwarf galaxies provide us with a wealth of information about the early Universe. In particular, these old survivors allow us to study the nature of the first stars and supernovae, the relevant nucleosynthesis processes responsible for the formation and evolution of the elements, early star‐ and galaxy formation processes, as well as the assembly process of the stellar halo from dwarf galaxies a long time ago. This review presents the current state of the field of “stellar archaeology” – the diverse use of metal‐poor stars to explore the high‐redshift Universe and its constituents. In particular, the conditions for early star formation are discussed, how these ultimately led to a chemical evolution, and what the role of the most iron‐poor stars is for learning about Population III supernovae yields. Rapid neutron‐capture signatures found in metal‐poor stars can be used to obtain stellar ages, but also to constrain this complex nucleosynthesis process with observational measurements. Moreover, chemical abundances of extremely metal‐poor stars in different types of dwarf galaxies can be used to infer details on the formation scenario of the halo and the role of dwarf galaxies as Galactic building blocks. I conclude with an outlook as to where this field may be heading within the next decade. A table of ~ 1000 metal‐poor stars and their abundances as collected from the literature is provided in electronic format (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A search for magnetic fields in cool sdB stars

Hot cluster horizontal branch (HB) stars and field subdwarf B (sdB) stars are core helium burning stars that exhibit abundance anomalies that are believed to be due to atomic diffusion. Diffusion can be effective in these stars because they are slowly rotating. In particular, the slow rotation of the hot HB stars (T_eff > 11000 K), which show abundance anomalies, contrasts with the fast rotation of the cool HB stars, where the observed abundances are consistent with those of red giants belonging to the same cluster. The reason why sdB stars and hot HB stars are rotating slowly is unknown. In order to assess the possible role of magnetic fields on abundances and rotation, we investigated the occurrence of such fields in sdB stars with T_eff < 30 000 K, whose temperatures overlap with those of the hot HB stars. We conclude that large‐scale organised magnetic fields of kG order are not generally present in these stars but at the achieved accuracy, the possibility that they have fields of a few hundred Gauss remains open. We report the marginal detection of such a field in SB 290; further observations are needed to confirm it (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Extremely metal‐poor stars in SDSS fields

Some insight on the first generation of stars can be obtained from the chemical composition of their direct descendants, extremely metal‐poor stars (EMP), with metallicity less than or equal to 1/1000 of the solar metallicity. Such stars are exceedingly rare, the most successful surveys, for this purpose, have so far provided only about 100 stars with 1/1000 the solar metallicity and 4 stars with about 1/10000 of the solar metallicity. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has the potential to provide a large number of candidates of extremely low metallicity. X‐shooter has the unique capability of performing the necessary follow‐up spectroscopy providing accurate metallicities and abundance ratios for several elements (Mg, Al, Ca, Ti, Cr, Sr,...) for EMP candidates. We here report on the results for the first two stars observed in the course of our Franco‐Italian X‐shooter GTO. The two stars were targeted to be of metallicity around –3.0, the analysis of the X‐shooter spectra showed them to be of metallicity around –2.0, but with a low α to iron ratio, which explains the underestimate of the metallicity from the SDSS spectra. The efficiency of X‐shooter allows an in situ study of the outer halo, for the two stars studied here we estimate distances of 3.9 and 9.1 kpc, these are likely the most distant dwarf stars studied in detail to date (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A new numerical scheme for structures of rotating magnetic stars

We have developed a new numerical scheme for obtaining structures of rapidly rotating stars with strong magnetic fields. In our scheme, both poloidal and toroidal magnetic fields can be treated for stars with compressibility and infinite conductivity. By introducing the vector potential and its integral representation, we can treat the boundary condition for the magnetic fields across the surface properly. We show structures and distributions of magnetic fields as well as the distributions of the currents of rotating magnetic polytropic stars with polytropic index   N = 1.5  . The shapes of magnetic stars are oblate as long as the magnetic vector potential decreases as 1/ r when   r →∞  . For extremely strong magnetic fields, equilibrium configurations can be of toroidal shapes.     

Multiperiodic semiregular variable stars in the ASAS data base: A pilot study

Based on a search for multi‐periodic variability among the semi‐regular red variable stars in the database of the All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS), a sample of 72 typical examples is presented. Their period analysis was performed using the Discrete Fourier Transform. In 41 stars we identified two significant periods each, simultaneously present, while the remaining 31 cases revealed even three such periods per star. They occur in a range roughly between 50 and 3000 days. Inter‐relationships between these periods were analyzed using the “double period diagram” which compares adjacent periods, and the so‐called “Petersen diagram”, the period ratio vs. the shorter period. In both diagrams we could identify six sequences of accumulation of the period values. For five of these sequences (containing 97 % of all data points) we found an almost perfect coincidence with those of previous studies which were based on very different samples of semiregular red variables. Therefore, existence and locations of these sequences in the diagrams seem to be universal features, which appear in any data set of semi‐regularly variable red giants of the AGB; we conclude that they are caused by different pulsation modes as the typical and consistent properties of similar stellar AGB configurations. Stellar pulsations can be considered as the principal cause of the observed periodic variability of these stars, and not binary, rotation of a spotted surface or other possible reasons suggested in the literature. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

恒星锂丰度研究进展

锂是少数几种在大中生成的元素之一,研究锂丰度对于探讨各种元素核合成理论以及星系的早期化学演化规律都具有十分重要的意义,阐述了有关恒星（类太阳星,晕族恒星和主序前得）及星团锂丰度的新近观测结果。介绍了在锂的核合成理论研究方面非局部热动平衡效应的影响及锂在恒星演化中的衰竭机制等理论的研究进展和存在的问题。     

Towards gravitational wave asteroseismology

We present new results for pulsating neutron stars. We have calculated the eigenfrequencies of the modes that one would expect to be the most important gravitational wave sources: the fundamental fluid f mode, the first pressure p mode and the first gravitational wave w mode, for twelve realistic equations of state. From these numerical data we have inferred a set of 'empirical relations' between the mode frequencies and the parameters of the star (the radius R and the mass M ). Some of these relations prove to be surprisingly robust, and we show how they can be used to extract the details of the star from observed modes. The results indicate that, should the various pulsation modes be detected by the new generation of gravitational wave detectors that come online in a few years, the mass and the radius of neutron stars can be deduced with errors no larger than a few per cent.     

Self-similar pressure oscillations in neutron star envelopes as probes of neutron star structure

We study eigenmodes of acoustic oscillations of high multipolarity l ∼ 100–1000 and high frequency (∼100 kHz), localized in neutron star envelopes. We show that the oscillation problem is self-similar. Once the oscillation spectrum is calculated for a given equation of state (EOS) in the envelope and given stellar mass M and radius R , it can be rescaled to a star with any M and R (but the same EOS in the envelope). For l ≳ 300, the modes can be subdivided into the outer and inner ones. The outer modes are mainly localized in the outer envelope. The inner modes are mostly localized near the neutron drip point, being associated with the softening of the EOS after the neutron drip. We calculate oscillation spectra for the EOSs of cold-catalyzed and accreted matter and show that the spectra of the inner modes are essentially different. A detection and identification of high-frequency pressure modes would allow one to infer M and R and determine also the EOS in the envelope (accreted or ground state) providing a new, potentially powerful method to explore the main parameters and internal structure of neutron stars.     

Ion‐ion charge exchange and X‐rays from the winds of hot stars

Charge exchange occurs between charged ions with enough energy to overcome Coulomb repulsion, a condition satisfied for collisions at velocities like those of the winds driven from hot stars by radiation pressure. X‐ray line ratios in some hot stars are inconsistent with those expected from thermal plasmas excited by electron impact. Ion‐ion interactions including charge exchange might be responsible instead if high‐velocity collisions between ions are enabled by the presence of a magnetic field in the wind, suggesting a possible alternative mechanism to the widely accepted instability‐driven shock model. The nature of a plasma in charge‐exchange equilibrium is yet to be determined (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Atmospheres and spectra of strongly magnetized neutron stars

We construct atmosphere models for strongly magnetized neutron stars with surface fields     and effective temperatures     . The atmospheres directly determine the characteristics of thermal emission from isolated neutron stars, including radio pulsars, soft gamma-ray repeaters, and anomalous X-ray pulsars. In our models, the atmosphere is composed of pure hydrogen or helium and is assumed to be fully ionized. The radiative opacities include free–free absorption and scattering by both electrons and ions computed for the two photon polarization modes in the magnetized electron–ion plasma. Since the radiation emerges from deep layers in the atmosphere with     , plasma effects can significantly modify the photon opacities by changing the properties of the polarization modes. In the case where the magnetic field and the surface normal are parallel, we solve the full, angle-dependent, coupled radiative transfer equations for both polarization modes. We also construct atmosphere models for general field orientations based on the diffusion approximation of the transport equations and compare the results with models based on full radiative transport. In general, the emergent thermal radiation exhibits significant deviation from blackbody, with harder spectra at high energies. The spectra also show a broad feature     around the ion cyclotron resonance     , where Z and A are the atomic charge and atomic mass of the ion, respectively; this feature is particularly pronounced when     . Detection of the resonance feature would provide a direct measurement of the surface magnetic fields on magnetars.     

Differential rotation of cool active stars

The surface differential rotation of active solar‐type stars can be investigated by means of Doppler and Zeeman‐Doppler Imaging, both techniques enabling one to estimate the short‐term temporal evolution of photospheric structures (cools spots or magnetic regions). After describing the main modeling tools recently developed to guarantee a precise analysis of differential rotation in this framework, we detail the main results obtained for a small number of active G and K fast rotating stars. We evoke in particular some preliminary trends that can be derived from this sample, bearing the promise that major advances in this field will be achieved with the new generation of spectropolarimeters (ESPaDOnS/CFHT, NARVAL/TBL). (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)