When it comes to lithium in late-type stars, atomic diffusion (AD) refers to the slow gravitational settling below the convective zone. Richard, Michaud & Richter, J. (2005) computed the influence of diffusion on the lithium abundance with different additional mixing (AddMix) parameters, after 13.5 Gyr with an initial Li abundance compatible with BBN. Without AddMix the abundance of lithium would decrease when the temperature of the star increases. This is depicted by the dashed green line in the left panel of Fig. 1 and is in contradiction with the existence of a lithium plateau. But with a model including ad-hoc AddMix, where the AddMix diffusion coefficient is given by DT and is connected to DHe(AD) at a reference temperature of log T0=6.25, it is possible to reproduce the plateau as seen in the figure (solid green line). AD with AddMix has so far been shown to be at work in two globular clusters (GC) with different metallicities. Korn et al. (2007) showed the effects in NGC 6397 at [Fe/H] = −2.1. More recently Gruyters et al. (2013) have shown smaller effects, but similar in nature, in NGC 6752 at [Fe/H] = −1.6. The Li abundance for both clusters can be brought in to agreement with predictions from the cosmic microwave background radiation and Big Bang nucleosynthesis (CMB+BBN) by using stellar structure models including AD and AddMix, although with different efficiencies of AddMix. It seems there is an evolution of AddMix with metallicity which renders AD less efficient. As AddMix acts only in the outer regions, helium settling in the core is not affected, and so the overall evolution (e.g. Teff-age relation) will be similar regardless of this parameter.

We present a new method devoted to chemical tagging for Galactic Archeology. In the context of the Gaia-ESO Survey (GES) and the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC), we aim at preparing the Gaia-Radial Velocity Spectrograph analysis, which will provide ~ 2×106 spectra covering the IR CaII triplet domain (R ~ 11 500), with sufficient SNR to perform chemical tagging. Our method will be integrated in the Gaia DPAC Apsis pipeline (CU8, Astrophysical Parameters) and we test it with GES GIRAFFE spectra (MEDUSA mode, HR10 & HR21) deriving abundances of MgI in 168 stars.

The formation and evolution of the heavy neutron-capture elements (Z > 37) are to date not well understood. Therefore, abundance and galactic chemical evolution (GCE) studies of these heavy elements may carry key information to this open question. Strontium (Sr) is one of the two heavy elements (Sr and Ba) that show intrinsically very strong absorption lines even in extremely metal-poor stars (and remains detectable at low spectral resolution). Hence, the 4077 Å Sr II line provides a unique insight into the behaviour of heavy neutron-capture elements at all metallicities and resolutions. Here the focus is on strontium, its 3D and NLTE (non-local thermodynamic equilibrium) corrections, as well as chemical evolution.

Using multi-band photometry we train a forward model to emulate the colour-change due to temperature and extinction for stars. We simultaneously solve for the astrophysical parameters (APs) extinction A0, temperature Teff and distance modulus μr in a Bayesian framework for individual stars. We introduce an HRD prior to account for previous knowledge about the distribution of stars in the temperature- absolute magnitude plane (see also Bailer-Jones 2011). This allows us to infer distance information. We obtain the full three dimensional PDFs of all the stars in a field, allowing us to determine extinction-distance profiles for a given line of sight.

We construct axisymmetric mass models for dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies in the Milky Way to obtain realistic limits on the non-spherical structure of their dark halos. This is motivated by the fact that the observed luminous parts of the dSphs are actually non-spherical and cold dark matter models predict non-spherical virialized dark halos on sub-galactic scales. Applying these models to line-of-sight velocity dispersion profiles along three position angles in six Galactic satellites, we find that the best fitting cases for most of the dSphs yield not spherical but oblate and flattened dark halos. We also find that the mass of the dSphs enclosed within inner 300 pc varies depending on their total luminosities, contrary to the conclusion of previous spherical models. This suggests the importance of considering non-spherical shapes of dark halos in dSph mass models.

We set new limits on the global shape of the dark halo in the Andromeda galaxy based on axisymmetric mass models constructed by Hayashi & Chiba (2012). This is motivated by the fact that CDM models predict non-spherical virialized dark halos, which reflect the process of mass assembly in the galactic scale. Based on the application of our models to latest kinematical data of globular clusters and dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the Andromeda halo, we find that the most plausible cases for Andromeda yield not a spherical but a prolate shape for its dark halo. We also find that the prolate dark halo is consistent with theoretical predictions in which the satellites are distributed anisotropically and preferentially located along major axes of their galactic host halos. It is a reflection of the intimate connection between galactic dark matter halos and the cosmic web.

The companion stars of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) would survive the explosions and show peculiar properties in the single-degenerate (SD) scenario. Whit different SD SN Ia channels, we obtained the velocity distributions of the surviving companion stars in the Milky Way. All properties presented may be verified by future observations.

Using star counts method, we estimated the Galactic structure parameters in high latitude field (50° ≤ l ≤ 55°, −46° ≤ b ≤ −44°), 10 deg2 field with Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and South Galactic Cap of U-band Sky Survey (SCUSS), to explore their possible variations with absolute magnitude. Here we just considered three components: double exponential thin disk and thick disk and a de Vaucouleurs halo. And these parameters were obtained by minimising χ2.

We use observations of OGLE-III ab-type RRLyrae stars towards the Galactic centre (Soszyński et al. 2011, AcA 6,1) to study the metallicity and 3D spatial distribution of the old and metal-poor component of the Galactic bulge. Metallicities and distances to the RRLyrae stars are derived photometrically from Fourier-component analyses of their light curves, allowing the determination of distances accurate to ~7% from 0 to 40 kpc. The distance distribution of the RRLyrae stars peaks at 8.8 kpc, with the data indicating the presence of a bar-like structure inclined at ~30° to the line of sight. The dataset also exhibits a secondary concentration of stars beyond the Galactic centre at ~27 kpc. This is consistent with the distance to the Sagittarius (Sgr) dwarf galaxy, and can be attributed to the serendipitous alignment of the Sgr stream with the bulge. This dataset allows the Sgr stream to be traced in this part of the sky for the first time. The underlying metallicity distributions are determined to have mean ± intrinsic width of [Fe/H]bulge = −1.24±0.23 dex and [Fe/H]Sgr = −1.53±0.14 dex.

We present our recent measurement of the kinematics of the Milky Way stellar halo (Light Side) and the derived mass of the dark matter halo (Dark Side) using the Jeans analysis. A tangential dip in the velocity anisotropy profile at r ~ 17 kpc (Kafle et al. 2012), and a distinct difference of ~65 kms−1 in the mean azimuthal velocity and the r.m.s dispersion of the most metal-rich and the metal-poor Blue Horizontal Branch stars we find (Kafle et al. 2013) are reported. The implications of this on the current controversial issue of an existence of the two-components in the halo are also discussed.

Aided with the kinematic measurements of the light side, we demonstrate how we infer the dynamical property of the dark side. Considering a realistic three component galaxy model (Hernquist bulge, Miyamoto-Nagai disk and NFW halo), we estimate the virial mass of the Galaxy to be Mvir = 1.2+0.5−0.4 × 1012M⊙ (Kafle et al. 2012). We also show that the rotation curve of the Galaxy has undulations similar to what have also been seen in the studies of the HI gas (Sofue et al. 2009).

The Gaia mission is expected to provide a total number of symbiotic stars in the Galaxy and their membership in stellar populations. Symbiotic stars with distinct emission lines in their spectra can be used as test objects in the analysis of Gaia data on peculiar stars.

For optical fiber spectrum of LAMOST, the requirement for magnitude difference between neighbor fibers is less than 5 magnitudes to avoid faint sources being contaminated by their bright neighbors. However, sometime, neither bright nor faint sources are dense enough to fill a whole plate (4000 fibers). To make full use of all the fibers, they have better be put into the same plate. To resolve crosstalk, we propose that photons fed into a fiber can be degraded by offsetting the fiber from disc center of the bright star. Thus the bright and faint sources can be observed in the same plate without crosstalk contamination. We test the feasibility of the program with the test observation of LAMOST, and the results show that our program is consistent with the expectation.

The abundance ratio [α/Fe] is a useful tracer to probe the history of star formation and the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. We present a statistical analysis of [α/Fe] in 953 dwarf stars to investigate the distributions of [α/Fe] in the the thin- and thick-disk stars.

Hyper-velocity stars are believed to be ejected out from the Galactic center through dynamical interactions of (binary) stars with the central massive black hole(s). In this paper, we firstly select F and G type main sequence stars from about 370,000 stellar spectra of DR7. Then, we select 369 high velocity stars from main sequence samples using the radial velocity distribution. Finally, we find 13 possible unbound hyper-velocity star candidates from the 369 high velocity stars.

Binary stars possibly exists in most galaxies and star clusters. Their evolution can lead to significant change in stellar population studies. Binary star to fit group (BS2fit: ∞) has built up a binary star stellar population synthesis model and used it in a few works. This page is to introduce the model and its possible applications.

We estimate the 3D extinction law in the optical–NIR bands for a line of sight in the 2nd quadrant of the Galactic disk. Two dust lanes are identified at ~9 and ~10.25 kpc in both AV and RV, indicating that the size of the dust grains in the spiral arms is larger than that in the inter-arm regions.

We use line-of-sight velocities of more than 4000 red clump stars observed from MMT/Hectospec to derive the Galactic rotation curve between 8 and 13 kpc in Galactocentric radius to better than 10 km s−1. A three-component (bulge+disk+halo) with an additional massive ring of 1.66×1010 M⊙ at about 11.6 kpc provides an excellent fit with the observation.

A support vector machine (SVM) method is applied to select K giant stars directly from the spectral features of LAMOST spectra. The performance of the algorithm is assessed using the MILES library. It shows that the completeness of the K giant stars is 87% with only about 6% dwarf contamination. This allows us to select 18,013 K giant stars at |b|>20° and 38,108 at |b|<20° from LAMOST pilot survey data.

We have performed a spectral analysis on 18 stars solar sibling candidate. We found that only one one of the candidateshas solar metallicity and at the same time might have an age comparable to that of the Sun.

A one-meter wide field astronomical telescope with Alt-Az mount, putting in work at prime focus with field corrector, is located at the Nanshan site of Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory. The Nanshan One meter Wide-field Telescope (hereafter NOWT) provides excellent optical quality, pointing accuracy and tracking accuracy. The main scientific goals of NOWT are supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, novae, variable stars, and active galactic nuclei. It is worthwhile to point out that the sky background at the Nanshan is a classic optical site.