ACTINIUM ABUNDANCES IN STELLAR ATMOSPHERES

This paper presents a study of radioactive actinium in the atmospheres of stars located in galaxies with different chemical evolution history – namely, Przybylski's Star (HD 101065) in the Milky Way and the red supergiant PMMR27 in the Small Magellanic Cloud; it also reports the findings of the previous research of the red supergiant RM 1-667 in the Large Magellanic Cloud and the red giant BL138 in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy. The actinium abundance is close to that of uranium in the atmospheres of certain stars in the Milky Way’s halo and in the atmosphere of Arcturus. The following actinium abundances have been obtained (in a scale of lg N(H) = 12): for the red supergiants PMMR27 and RM 1- 667 lg N(Ac) = -1.7 and lg N(Ac) = -1.3, respectively, and for the red giant BL138 lg N(Ac) = -1.6. The actinium abundance in the atmosphere of Przybylski's Star (HD 101065) is lg N(Ac) = `0.94±0.09, which is more than two orders of magnitude higher than those in the atmospheres of the other studied stars.

An Unbiased CO Survey toward the Northern Region of the Small Magellanic Cloud with the Atacama Compact Array. I. Overview: CO Cloud Distributions

We have analyzed the data from a large-scale CO survey toward the northern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) obtained with the Atacama Compact Array (ACA) stand-alone mode of ALMA. The primary aim of this study is to comprehensively understand the behavior of CO as an H2 tracer in a low-metallicity environment (Z ∼ 0.2 Z ⊙). The total number of mosaic fields is ∼8000, which results in a field coverage of 0.26 deg2 (∼2.9 ×105 pc2), corresponding to ∼10% of the area of the galaxy. The sensitive ∼2 pc resolution observations reveal the detailed structure of the molecular clouds previously detected in the single-dish NANTEN survey. We have detected a number of compact CO clouds within lower H2 column density (∼1020 cm−2) regions whose angular scale is similar to the ACA beam size. Most of the clouds in this survey also show peak brightness temperature as low as <1 K, which for optically thick CO emission implies an emission size much smaller than the beam size, leading to beam dilution. The comparison between an available estimation of the total molecular material traced by thermal dust emission and the present CO survey demonstrates that more than ∼90% of H2 gas cannot be traced by the low-J CO emission. Our processed data cubes and 2D images are publicly available.

Presence of red giant population in the foreground stellar sub-structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud

The eastern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is found to have a foreground stellar sub-structure, which is identified as a distance bimodality (∼ 12 kpc apart) in the previous studies using Red Clump (RC) stars. Interestingly, studies of Red Giant Branch (RGB) stars in the eastern SMC indicate a bimodal radial velocity (RV) distribution. In this study, we investigate the connection between these two bimodal distributions to better understand the nature and origin of the foreground stellar sub-structure in the eastern SMC. We use the Gaia EDR3 astrometric data and archival RV data of RGB stars for this study. We found a bimodal RV distribution of RGB stars (separated by ∼ 35–45 km s−1) in the eastern and south-western (SW) outer regions. The observed proper motion values of the lower and higher RV RGB components in the eastern regions are similar to those of the foreground and main-body RC stars respectively. This suggests that the two RGB populations in the eastern region are separated by a similar distance as those of the RC stars, and the RGB stars in the lower RV component are part of the foreground sub-structure. Based on the differences in the distance and RV of the two components, we estimated an approximate time of formation of this sub-structure as 307 ± 65 Myr ago. This is comparable with the values predicted by simulations for the recent epoch of tidal interaction between the Magellanic Clouds. Comparison of the observed properties of RGB stars, in the outer SW region, with N-body simulations shows that the higher RV component in the SW region is at a farther distance than the main body, indicating the presence of a stellar Counter-Bridge in the SW region of the SMC.

The abundance of satellites around Milky Way- and M31-like galaxies with the TNG50 simulation: a matter of diversity

ABSTRACT We study the abundance of satellite galaxies around 198 Milky Way- (MW) and M31-like hosts in TNG50, the final installment in the IllustrisTNG suite of cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulations. MW/M31-like analogues are defined as discy galaxies with stellar masses of $M_* = 10^{10.5 - 11.2}~\rm {M}_\odot$ in relative isolation at z = 0. By defining satellites as galaxies with $M_* \ge 5\times 10^{6}~\rm {M}_\odot$ within $300~\rm {kpc}$ (3D) of their host, we find a remarkable level of diversity and host-to-host scatter across individual host galaxies. The median TNG50 MW/M31-like galaxy hosts a total of $5^{+6}_{-3}$ satellites with $M_* \ge 8 \times 10^6~\rm {M}_\odot$, reaching up to $M_* \sim 10^{8.5^{+0.9}_{-1.1}}~\rm {M}_\odot$. Even at a fixed host halo mass of $10^{12}~\rm {M}_\odot$, the total number of satellites ranges between 0 and 11. The abundance of subhaloes with $M_\rm {dyn} \ge 5 \times 10^7~\rm {M}_\odot$ is larger by a factor of more than 10. The number of all satellites (subhaloes) ever accreted is larger by a factor of 4–5 (3–5) than those surviving to z = 0. Hosts with larger galaxy stellar mass, brighter K-band luminosity, more recent halo assembly, and – most significantly – larger total halo mass typically have a larger number of surviving satellites. The satellite abundances around TNG50 MW/M31-like galaxies are consistent with those of mass-matched hosts from observational surveys (e.g. SAGA) and previous simulations (e.g. Latte). While the observed MW satellite system falls within the TNG50 scatter across all stellar masses considered, M31 is slightly more satellite-rich than our 1σ scatter but well consistent with the high-mass end of the TNG50 sample. We find a handful of systems with both a Large and a Small Magellanic Cloud-like satellite. There is no missing satellites problem according to TNG50.

UVIT-HST-Gaia-VISTA study of KRON 3 in the Small Magellanic Cloud: A cluster with an extended red clump in UV

We have demonstrated the advantage of combining multi-wavelength observations, from the ultraviolet (UV) to near-infrared, to study Kron 3, a massive star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud. We have estimated the radius of the cluster Kron 3 to be 2${_{.}^{\prime}}$0 and for the first time, we report the identification of NUV-bright red clump (RC) stars and the extension of the RC in colour and magnitude in the NUV versus (NUV−optical) colour-magnitude diagram (CMD). We found that extension of the RC is an intrinsic property of the cluster and it is not due to contamination of field stars or differential reddening across the field. We studied the spectral energy distribution of the RC stars, and estimated a small range in temperature ∼5000–5500 K, luminosity ∼60–90 L⊙ and radius ∼8.0–11.0 R⊙ supporting their RC nature. The range of UV magnitudes amongst the RC stars (∼23.3 to 24.8 mag) is likely caused by the combined effects of variable mass loss, variation in initial helium abundance (Yini = 0.23 to 0.28), and a small variation in age (6.5-7.5 Gyr) and metallicity ([Fe/H] = −1.5 to −1.3). Spectroscopic follow-up observations of RC stars in Kron 3 are necessary to confirm the cause of the extended RC.