For late-type non-active stars, gravitational redshifts and convective blueshifts are the main source of biases in the determination of radial velocities. If ignored, these effects can introduce systematic errors of the order of ~ 0.5 km/s. We demonstrate that three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of solar surface convection can be used to predict the convective blue-shifts of weak spectral lines in solar-like stars to ~ 0.070 km/s. Using accurate trigonometric parallaxes and stellar evolution models, the gravitational redshifts can be constrained with a similar uncertainty, leading to absolute radial velocities accurate to better than ~ 0.1 km/s.
In solar-type stars, the attenuation of convective blueshift by stellar magnetic activity dominates the RV variations over the low amplitude signal induced by low mass planets. Models of stars that differ from the Sun will require a good knowledge of the attenuation of the convective blueshift to estimate its impact on the variations. It is therefore crucial to precisely determine not only the amplitude of the convective blueshift for different types of stars, but also the dependence of this convective blueshift on magnetic activity, as these are key factors in our model producing the RV. We s…
The detection of Earth-mass exoplanets in the habitable zone around solar-mass stars using the radial velocity technique requires extremely high precision, on the order of 10$\,$cm$\,$s$^{-1}$, below the intrinsic variability of even relatively inactive stars, such as the Sun. One such variable is convective blueshift varying temporally, spatially, and between spectral lines. We develop a new approach for measuring convective blueshift and determine the strength of convective blueshift for 810 stars observed by the HARPS spectrograph, spanning spectral types late-F, G, K, and early-M. We deriv…
Granular convective motions reach into the lower solar atmosphere, typically causing photospheric spectral lines to exhibit a differential line shift. This Doppler shift to shorter wavelength is commonly known as convective blueshift. We performed systematic observations of the quiet Sun with the Laser Absolute Reference Spectrograph (LARS) at the German Vacuum Tower Telescope. The solar disk was scanned along the meridian and the equator, from the disk center toward the limb. The solar spectrum around 6173Å was calibrated with a laser frequency comb on an absolute wavelength scale with an acc…
Convective motions in the solar atmosphere cause spectral lines to become asymmetric and shifted in wavelength. For photospheric lines, this differential Doppler shift varies from the solar disk center to the limb. Precise and comprehensive observations of the convective blueshift and its center-to-limb variation improve our understanding of the atmospheric hydrodynamics and ensuing line formation, and provide the basis to refine 3D models of the solar atmosphere. We performed systematical spectroscopic measurements of the convective blueshift of the quiet Sun with the Laser Absolute Reference…
The solar convection manifests as granulation and intergranulation at the solar surface. In the photosphere, convective motions induce differential Doppler shifts to spectral lines. The observed convective blueshift varies across the solar disk. We focus on the impact of solar convection on the atmosphere and aim to resolve its velocity stratification in the photosphere. We performed high-resolution spectroscopic observations of the solar spectrum in the 6302\,Å range with the Laser Absolute Reference Spectrograph (LARS) at the Vacuum Tower Telescope. A laser frequency comb enabled the calibra…
The inhibition of small-scale convection in the Sun dominates the long-term radial velocity (RV) variability: it therefore has a critical effect on light exoplanet detectability using RV techniques. We here extend our previous analysis of stellar convective blueshift and its dependence on magnetic activity to a larger sample of stars in order to extend the Teff range, to study the impact of other stellar properties, and finally to improve the comparison between observed RV jitter and expected RV variations. We estimate a differential velocity shift for Fe and Ti lines of different depths and d…
In this paper, four sets of evolutionary models are computed with different values of the mixing length parameter $α_{\rm p}$ and the overshooting parameter $δ_{\rm ov}$. The properties of the convective cores and the convective envelopes are studied in the massive stars. We get three conclusions: First, the larger $α_{\rm p}$ leads to enhancing the convective mixing, removing the chemical gradient, and increasing the convective heat transfer efficiency. Second, core potential $ϕ_{\rm c} = M_{\rm c} / R_{\rm c}$ describes sufficiently the evolution of a star, whether it is a red or blue superg…
We present the evolution of a 6M$_{\odot}$ star, of solar-like initial metallicity, and investigate the effects of key nuclear reaction rates, as well as the treatment of the convective mixing on its evolution along the Cepheid instability strip. In particular, we study the effect of recent estimates of the $^{14}$N(p,γ)$^{15}$O reaction on the formation and extension of the blue loop during core helium burning. We also investigate the effects induced on this blue loop by the adoption of non-standard convective mixing prescriptions, as well as the implications of modifying the Mixing Length Th…
We analyze the GAIA release II data to demonstrate how one can measure the absolute total intrinsic redshifts of the main sequence stars and red giants. We remove the relative velocity components of the stars' motion with respect to the sun by doing the analysis in the local standard of rest (LSR) frame defined by the average stars' motion. We provide results for four different types of stars. F, G and K types of stars have about the same value of intrinsic redshift, which is however much smaller than the expected gravitational redshift. This indicates that the GAIA's data include convective b…
Based on the turbulent convection model (TCM), we investigate chemical mixing in the bottom overshooting region of the convective envelope of intermediate-mass stars, focusing on its influence on the formation and extension of blue loops in the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram. A diffusive mixing model is adopted during the Red Giant Branch (RGB) phase. The properties of the blue loop are changed by modification of the element profiles above the H-burning shell, which results from the incomplete mixing in the bottom overshooting region when stellar model evolves up along the RGB. Such modifica…
To derive space velocities of stars along the line of sight from wavelength shifts in stellar spectra requires accounting for a number of second-order effects. For most stars, gravitational redshifts, convective blueshifts, and transverse stellar motion are the dominant contributors. We provide theoretical corrections for the net velocity shifts due to convection expected for the measurements from the Gaia Radial Velocity Spectrometer (RVS). We used a set of three-dimensional time-dependent simulations of stellar surface convection computed with CO5BOLD to calculate spectra of late-type stars …
Efforts to detect low-mass exoplanets using stellar radial velocities (RVs) are currently limited by magnetic photospheric activity. Suppression of convective blueshift is the dominant magnetic contribution to RV variability in low-activity Sun-like stars. Due to convective plasma motions, the magnitude of RV contributions from the suppression of convective blueshift is related to the depth of formation of photospheric spectral lines of a given species used to compute the RV time series. Meunier et al. (2017), used this relation to demonstrate a method for spectroscopic extraction of the suppr…
About 10$\%$ of the massive main sequence stars have recently been found to host a strong, large scale magnetic field. Both, the origin and the evolutionary consequences of these fields are largely unknown. We argue that these fields may be sufficiently strong in the deep interior of the stars to suppress convection near the outer edge of their convective core. We performed parametrised stellar evolution calculations and assumed a reduced size of the convective core for stars in the mass range 16 M$_{\odot}$ to 28 M$_{\odot}$ from the zero age main sequence until core carbon depletion. We find…
Thanks to their past history on the main sequence phase, supergiant massive stars develop a convective shell around the helium core. This intermediate convective zone (ICZ) plays an essential role in governing which g-modes are excited. Indeed a strong radiative damping occurs in the high density radiative core but the ICZ acts as a barrier preventing the propagation of some g-modes into the core. These g-modes can thus be excited in supergiant stars by the kappa-mechanism in the superficial layers due to the opacity bump of iron, at log T=5.2. However massive stars are submitted to various co…
We present the evolution of massive star progenitors of supernovae of type IIP. We take the example of the nearby and well-studied SN 2013ej. We explore how convective overshoot affects the stellar structure, surface abundances, and effective temperature of massive stars, using the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA). In particular models with moderate overshoot ($f$ = 0.02 to 0.031) show the presence of blue loops in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram with a red to blue [$log_{10}(T_{eff}/\rm K)$ from $< 3.6$ to $> 4.0$] excursion and transition back to red, during core helium…
The distribution of stars in the Hertzsprung Russell diagram (HRD) for a stellar conglomeration represents a snapshot of its evolving stellar population. Some of the supergiant stars may transit the HRD from blue to red and then again to blue during their late evolutionary stages, as exemplified by the progenitor of SN 1987A. Others may transit a given part of the HRD more than twice in a "blue loop" and end up as red supergiants before they explode. Since stars in blue loops spend a considerable part of their lives there, these stages may change the relative number of modeled supergiants in t…
Convection plays a key role in the evolution of stars due to energy transport and mixing of composition. Despite its importance, this process is still not well understood. One longstanding conundrum in all 1D stellar evolution codes is the treatment of convective boundaries. In this study we compare two convective uncertainties, the boundary location (Ledoux versus Schwarzschild) and the amount of extra mixing, and their impact on the early evolution of massive stars. With increasing convective boundary mixing (CBM), we find a convergence of the two different boundary locations, a decreasing b…
In sunspot umbrae, convection is largely suppressed by the strong magnetic field. Previous measurements reported on negligible convective flows in umbral cores. Based on this, numerous studies have taken the umbra as zero reference to calculate Doppler velocities of the ambient active region. To clarify the amount of convective motion in the darkest part of umbrae, we directly measured Doppler velocities with an unprecedented accuracy and precision. We performed spectroscopic observations of sunspot umbrae with the Laser Absolute Reference Spectrograph (LARS) at the German Vacuum Tower Telesco…
We present a new solar flux atlas with the aim to understand wavelength precision and accuracy in solar benchmark data. The atlas covers the wavelength range 405--2300 nm and was observed at the Institut für Astrophysik, Göttingen (IAG) with a Fourier Transform Spectrograph. In contrast to other FTS atlases, the entire visible wavelength range was observed simultaneously using only one spectrograph setting. We compare the wavelength solution of the new atlas to the Kitt Peak solar flux atlases and to the HARPS frequency-comb calibrated solar atlas. Comparison reveals systematics in the two Kit…
The influence of the convective structure of the solar photosphere on the shifts of spectral lines of iron was studied. Line profiles in the visible and infrared spectrum were synthesized with the use of 2-D time-dependent hydrodynamic solar model atmospheres. The dependence of line shifts on excitation potential, wavelength, and line strength was analyzed, along with the depression contribution functions. The line shifts were found to depend on the location of the line formation region in convective cells and the difference between the line depression contributions from granules and intergran…
Accounting for stellar activity is a crucial component of the search for ever-smaller planets orbiting stars of all spectral types. We use Doppler imaging methods to demonstrate that starspot induced radial velocity variability can be effectively reduced for moderately rotating, fully convective stars. Using starspot distributions extrapolated from sunspot observations, we adopt typical M dwarf starspot distributions with low contrast spots to synthesise line profile distortions. The distortions are recovered using maximum entropy regularised fitting and the corresponding stellar radial veloci…
We consider the blue loops in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram that occur when intermediate-mass stars begin core helium burning. It has long been known that the excess of helium above the burning shell, the result of the contraction of the convective core during core hydrogen burning, has the effect of making such stars redder and larger than they would be otherwise. The outward motion of the burning shell in mass removes this excess and triggers the loop. Hitherto nobody has attempted to demonstrate why the excess helium has this effect. We consider the effect of the local opacity, which is r…
On March 20, 2015, we obtained 159 spectra of the Sun as a star with the solar telescope and the FTS at the Institut für Astrophysik Göttingen, 76 spectra were taken during partial solar eclipse. We obtained RVs using $I_2$ as wavelength reference and determined the RM curve with a peak-to-peak amplitude of almost 1.4 km s$^{-1}$ at typical RV precision better than 1 m s$^{-1}$. We modeled disk-integrated solar RVs using surface velocities, limb darkening, and information about convective blueshift from 3D magneto-hydrodynamic simulations. We confirm that convective blueshift is crucial to und…
We propose a speculative scenario where dynamo amplification of magnetic fields in the core convective shells of massive stars, tens of years to hours before they explode, leads to envelope expansion and enhanced mass loss rate, resulting in pre-explosion outbursts (PEOs). The convective luminosity in the burning shells of carbon, neon, oxygen, and then silicon, are very high. Based on the behavior of active main sequence stars we speculate that the convective shells can trigger magnetic activity with a power of about 0.001 times the convective luminosity. Magnetic flux tubes might buoy outwar…
The convective kissing instability in low-mass M-dwarf models: convective overshooting, semi-convection, luminosity functions, surface abundances and star cluster age dating
The Gaia M-dwarf gap is a significant under-density of stars observed near $M_G = 10.2$ in a color-magnitude diagram for stars within 200 pc of the Sun. It has been proposed that the gap is the manifestation of structural instabilities within stellar interiors due to non-equilibrium $^{3}$He fusion prior to some stars becoming fully convective. To test this hypothesis, we use Dartmouth stellar evolution models, MARCS model atmospheres, and simple stellar population synthesis to create synthetic $M_G$-($G_{\rm BP} - G_{\rm RP})$ color-magnitude diagrams. We confirm that the proposed $^{3}$He in…
Recent stellar evolution computations indicate that massive stars in the range ~ 20 - 30 Msun are located in the blue supergiant (BSG) region of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram at two different stages of their life: immediately after the main sequence (MS, group 1) and during a blueward evolution after the red supergiant phase (group 2). From the observation of the pulsationnal properties of a subgroup of variable BSGs (alpha Cyg variables), one can deduce that these stars belongs to group 2. It is however difficult to simultaneously fit the observed surface abundances and gravity for these st…
Stellar evolution calculations have had great success reproducing the observed atmospheric properties of different classes of stars. Recent detections of g-mode pulsations in evolved He burning stars allow a rare comparison of their internal structure with stellar models. Asteroseismology of subdwarf B stars suggests convective cores of $0.22-0.28\,M_\odot$, $\gtrsim 45\,\%$ of the total stellar mass. Previous studies found significantly smaller convective core masses ($\lesssim 0.19\,M_\odot$) at a comparable evolutionary stage. We evolved stellar models with MESA (Modules for Experiments in …
We study the evolution of the collapsing core of a 15 Msun blue supergiant supernova progenitor from the core bounce until 1.5 seconds later. We present a sample of hydrodynamic models parameterized to match the explosion energetics of SN 1987A. We find the spatial model dimensionality to be an important contributing factor in the explosion process. Compared to two-dimensional simulations, our three-dimensional models require lower neutrino luminosities to produce equally energetic explosions. We estimate that the convective engine in our models is 4% more efficient in three dimensions than in…
The internal rotation of low mass stars all along their evolution is of primary interest when studying their rotational dynamics, internal mixing and magnetic fields generation. In this context, helio- and asteroseismology probe angular velocity gradients deep within solar type stars. Still the rotation of the close center of such stars on the main sequence is hardly detectable and the dynamical interactions of the radiative core with the surface convective envelope is not well understood. Among them, the influence of the differential rotation profile sustained by convection and applied as a b…
We study the runaway mass loss process of major eruptions of luminous blue variables (LBVs) stars, such as the 1837-1856 Great Eruption of Eta Carinae. We follow the evolution of a massive star with a spherical stellar evolution numerical code. After the star exhausted most of the hydrogen in the core and had developed a large envelope, we remove mass at a rate of 1 Mo/year from the outer envelope for 20 years. We find that after removing a small amount of mass at a high rate, the star contracts and releases a huge amount of gravitational energy. We suggest that this energy can sustain the hig…
The blue-straggler binary WOCS 5379 is a member of the old (6-7 Gyr) open cluster NGC 188. WOCS 5379 comprises a blue straggler star with a white dwarf companion in a 120-day eccentric orbit. Combined with the orbital period, this helium white dwarf is evidence of previous mass transfer by a red giant. Detailed models of the system evolution from a progenitor main-sequence binary, including mass transfer, are made using the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA). Both of the progenitor stars are evolved in the simulation. WOCS 5379 is well reproduced with a primary star of init…
The gravitational redshift induced by stellar surface gravity is notoriously difficult to measure for non-degenerate stars, since its amplitude is small in comparison with the typical Doppler shift induced by stellar radial velocity. In this study, we make use of the large observational data set of the Gaia mission to achieve a significant reduction of noise caused by these random stellar motions. By measuring the differences in velocities between the components of pairs of co-moving stars and wide binaries, we are able to statistically measure the combined effects of gravitational redshift an…
Context. The origin of the fossil magnetic fields detected in 5 to 10% of intermediate-mass main sequence stars is still highly debated. Aims. We want to bring observational constraints to a large population of intermediate-mass pre-main sequence (PMS) stars in order to test the theory that convective-dynamo fields generated during the PMS phases of stellar evolution can occasionally relax into fossil fields on the main sequence. Methods. Using distance estimations, photometric measurements, and spectropolarimetric data from HARPSpol and ESPaDOnS of 38 intermediate-mass PMS stars, we determine…
The internal rotation and magnetism of evolved massive stars are considered in response to i) the inward pumping of angular momentum through deep and slowly rotating convective layers; and ii) the winding up of a helical magnetic field in radiative layers. Field winding can transport angular momentum effectively even when the toroidal field is limited by kinking. Magnetic helicity is pumped into a growing radiative layer from an adjacent convective envelope (or core). The receding convective envelope that forms during the early accretion phase of a massive star is the dominant source of helici…
All the studies of the interaction between tides and a convective flow assume that the large scale tides can be described as a mean shear flow which is damped by small scale fluctuating convective eddies. The convective Reynolds stress is calculated using mixing length theory, accounting for a sharp suppression of dissipation when the turnover timescale is larger than the tidal period. This yields tidal dissipation rates several orders of magnitude too small to account for the circularization periods of late-type binaries or the tidal dissipation factor of giant planets. Here, we argue that th…
Context. Variability caused by stellar activity represents a challenge to the discovery and characterization of terrestrial exoplanets and complicates the interpretation of atmospheric planetary signals. Aims. We aim to use a detailed modeling tool to reproduce the effect of active regions on radial velocity measurements, which aids the identification of the key parameters that have an impact on the induced variability. Methods. We analyzed the effect of stellar activity on radial velocities as a function of wavelength by simulating the impact of the properties of spots, shifts induced by conv…
Context. The surface structures and dynamics of cool stars are characterized by the presence of convective motions and turbulent flows which shape the emergent spectrum. Aims. We used realistic three-dimensional radiative hydrodynamical simulations from the Stagger-grid to calculate synthetic spectra with the radiative transfer code Optim3D for stars with different stellar parameters to predict photometric colors and convective velocity shifts. Methods. We calculated spectra from 1000 to 200 000 A with a constant resolving power of 20 000 and from 8470 and 8710 A (Gaia Radial Velocity Spectrom…
We attempt to constrain the initial helium abundance, the age and the efficiency of the convective core overshooting of the binary system TZ Fornacis. Our main aim is in pointing out the biases in the results due to not accounting for some sources of uncertainty. We adopt the SCEPtER pipeline, relying on stellar models computed with two stellar evolutionary codes (FRANEC and MESA). We found multiple independent groups of solutions. The best one suggests a system of age 1.10 $\pm$ 0.07 Gyr (primary star in the central helium burning stage, secondary in the sub-giant branch), with a helium-to-me…
Three dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of full amplitude RR Lyrae stars have been computed for several models across the instability strip. The three dimensional nature of the calculations allows convection to be treated without reference to a phenomenological approach such as the local mixing length theory. Specifically, the time dependent interaction of the large scale eddies and the radial pulsation is controlled by the conservation laws, while the effects of smaller convective eddies are simulated by an eddy viscosity model. The light amplitudes for these calculations are quite similar…
We present results of the instability analysis of the post-main sequence massive star models against radial and nonradial pulsations. We confirm that both p- and g-modes can be excited by the $κ$-mechanism acting in the metal opacity bump. However, as opposed to the previous claims, we find that an intermediate convective zone (ICZ) related to the hydrogen burning shell is not necessary for excitation of g-modes. These modes can be reflected at a minimum of the Brunt-Väisälä frequency, located at the top of the chemical composition gradient region surrounding the radiative helium core. This mi…
Observations of the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect provide information on star-planet alignments, which can inform planetary migration and evolution theories. Here, we go beyond the classical RM modelling and explore the impact of a convective blueshift that varies across the stellar disc and non-Gaussian stellar photospheric profiles. We simulated an aligned hot Jupiter with a 4 d orbit about a Sun-like star and injected centre-to-limb velocity (and profile shape) variations based on radiative 3D magnetohydrodynamic simulations of solar surface convection. The residuals between our modelling…
Long-term stellar activity variations can affect the detectability of long-period and Earth-analogue extrasolar planets. We have, for 54 stars, analysed the long-term trend of five activity indicators: log$R'_\mathrm{HK}$, the cross-correlation function (CCF) bisector span, CCF full-width-at-half-maximum, CCF contrast, and the area of the Gaussian fit to the CCF; and studied their correlation with the RVs. The sign of the correlations appears to vary as a function of stellar spectral type, and the transition in sign signals a noteworthy change in the stellar activity properties where earlier t…
Searches for exoplanets with radial velocity techniques are increasingly sensitive to stellar activity. It is therefore crucial to characterize how this activity influences radial velocity measurements in their study of the detectability of planets in these conditions. In a previous work we simulated the impact of spots and plages on the radial velocity of the Sun. Our objective is to compare this simulation with the observed radial velocity of the Sun for the same period. We use Dopplergrams and magnetograms obtained by MDI/SOHO over one solar cycle to reconstruct the solar integrated radial …
The IACOB project XIX. Revisiting massive-star evolution with empirical TAMS constraints: updated models, overshoot calibration, and the population of blue supergiants
University of Geneva（日内瓦大学）；European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）；Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias（加那利群岛天体物理研究所）；Universidad de La Laguna（拉古纳大学）
The detection of mixed oscillation modes offers a unique insight into the internal structure of core helium burning (CHeB) stars. The stellar structure during CHeB is very uncertain because the growth of the convective core, and/or the development of a semiconvection zone, is critically dependent on the treatment of convective boundaries. In this study we calculate a suite of stellar structure models and their non-radial pulsations to investigate why the predicted asymptotic g-mode $\ell = 1$ period spacing $ΔΠ_1$ is systematically lower than is inferred from Kepler field stars. We find that o…
The Doppler line shifts in the spectra of the Sun and stars with effective temperatures from 4800 to 6200 K were measured and the average connective (granulation) velocities were estimated. The absolute scale of the line shifts for the stars was established on the basis of the derived dependence of the shifts of solar lines on optical depth. For FGK solar-type stars, curves of convection velocities as a function of the height in the atmosphere in a large range of heights from 150 to 700 km were obtained for the first time. All these curves indicate a decrease in blue shifts with height, which …
Quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) appear to be a common feature observed in the light curves of both solar and stellar flares. However, their quasi-periodic nature, along with the fact that they can be small in amplitude and short-lived, makes QPPs difficult to unequivocally detect. In this paper, we test the strengths and limitations of state-of-the-art methods for detecting QPPs using a series of hare-and-hounds exercises. The hare simulated a set of flares, both with and without QPPs of a variety of forms, while the hounds attempted to detect QPPs in blind tests. We use the results of these …
We use images taken with the infrared channel of the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to study the multiple main sequences (MSs) of NGC 2808. Below the turn off, the red, the middle, and the blue MS, previously detected from visual-band photometry, are visible over an interval of about 3.5 F160W magnitudes. The three MSs merge together at the level of the MS bend. At fainter magnitudes, the MS again splits into two components containing ~65% and ~35% of stars, with the most-populated MS being the bluest one. Theoretical isochrones suggest that the latter is connected to …
Stellar evolution models are most uncertain for evolved massive stars. Asteroseismology based on high-precision uninterrupted space photometry has become a new way to test the outcome of stellar evolution theory and was recently applied to a multitude of stars, but not yet to massive evolved supergiants.Our aim is to detect, analyse and interpret the photospheric and wind variability of the O9.5Iab star HD 188209 from Kepler space photometry and long-term high-resolution spectroscopy. We used Kepler scattered-light photometry obtained by the nominal mission during 1460d to deduce the photometr…
School of Astronomy and Space Science, Nanjing University（南京大学天文与空间科学学院）；Institute for Solar Physics, Dept. of Astronomy, Stockholm University（斯德哥尔摩大学天文学系太阳物理研究所）
本研究利用观测数据和模拟分析，揭示了太阳Fe I 6569 Å线的边缘位移效应，发现方法1在低分辨率下仍保持经典行为，而方法2则出现显著偏离。
