Star Matter Research Articles

A New Asteroseismic Kepler Benchmark Constrains the Onset of Weakened Magnetic Braking in Mature Sun-like Stars

Stellar spin down is a critical yet poorly understood component of stellar evolution. In particular, results from the Kepler Mission imply that mature age, solar-type stars have inefficient magnetic braking, resulting in a stalled spin-down rate. However, a large number of precise asteroseismic ages are needed for mature (≥3 Gyr) stars in order to probe the regime where traditional and stalled spin-down models differ. In this paper, we present a new asteroseismic benchmark star for gyrochronology discovered using reprocessed Kepler short cadence data. KIC 11029516 (Papayu) is a bright (Kp = 9.6 mag) solar-type star with a well-measured rotation period (21.1 ± 0.8 days) from spot modulation using 4 yr of Kepler long-cadence data. We combine asteroseismology and spectroscopy to obtain T eff = 5888 ± 100 K, [Fe/H] = 0.30 ± 0.06 dex, M = 1.24 ± 0.05 M ⊙, R = 1.34 ± 0.02 R ⊙, and age of 4.0 ± 0.4 Gyr, making Papayu one of the most similar stars to the Sun in terms of temperature and radius with an asteroseismic age and a rotation period measured from spot modulation. We find that Papayu sits at the transition of where traditional and weakened spin-down models diverge. A comparison with stars of similar zero-age main-sequence temperatures supports previous findings that weakened spin-down models are required to explain the ages and rotation periods of old solar-type stars.

Potential effects of stellar winds on gas dynamics in debris disks leading to observable belt winds

Context. Gas has been successfully detected in many extrasolar systems around mature stars aged between 10 Myr and ∼1 Gyr that include planetesimal belts. Gas in these mature disks is thought to be released from planetesimals and has been modeled using a viscous disk approach where the gas expands inwards and outwards from the belt where it is produced. Therefore, the gas has so far been assumed to make up the circumstellar disk orbiting the star; however, at low densities, this may not be an adequate assumption, as the gas could be blown out by the stellar wind instead. Aims. In this paper, we aim to explore the timeframe in which a gas disk transitions to such a gas wind and whether this information can be used to determine the stellar wind properties around main sequence stars, which are otherwise difficult to obtain. Methods. We developed an analytical model for A to M stars that can follow the evolution of gas outflows and target the moment of transition between a disk or a wind in order to make a comparison with current observations. The crucial criterion here is the gas density for which gas particles are no longer protected from the impact of stellar wind protons at high velocities and on radial trajectories. Results. We find that: (1) belts with a radial width, ΔR, with gas densities <7 (ΔR/50 au)−1 cm−3, would create a wind rather than a disk, which would explain the recent outflowing gas detection in NO Lup; (2) the properties of this belt wind can be used to measure stellar wind properties such as their densities and velocities; (3) very early-type stars can also form gas winds due to the star’s radiation pressure, instead of a stellar wind; (4) debris disks with low fractional luminosities, f, are more likely to create gas winds, which could be observed with current facilities. Conclusions. Systems containing low gas masses, such as Fomalhaut or TWA 7, or more generally, debris disks with fractional luminosities of f ≲ 10−5(L⋆/L⊙)−0.37 or stellar luminosity ≳20 L⊙ (A0V or earlier) are more likely to create gas outflows (or belt winds) than gas disks. Gas that is observed to be outflowing at high velocity in the young system NO Lup could be an example of such belt winds. Future observing predictions in this wind region should account for the stellar wind in the attempt to detect the gas. The detection of these gas winds is possible with ALMA (CO and CO+ could serve as good wind tracers). This would allow us to constrain the stellar wind properties of main-sequence stars, as these properties are otherwise difficult to measure, since, for example, there are no successful measures around A stars at present.

From Pebbles and Planetesimals to Planets and Dust: The Protoplanetary Disk–Debris Disk Connection

Abstract The similar orbital distances and detection rates of debris disks and the prominent rings observed in protoplanetary disks suggest a potential connection between these structures. We explore this connection with new calculations that follow the evolution of rings of pebbles and planetesimals as they grow into planets and generate dusty debris. Depending on the initial solid mass and planetesimal formation efficiency, the calculations predict diverse outcomes for the resulting planet masses and accompanying debris signature. When compared with debris disk incidence rates as a function of luminosity and time, the model results indicate that the known population of bright cold debris disks can be explained by rings of solids with the (high) initial masses inferred for protoplanetary disk rings and modest planetesimal formation efficiencies that are consistent with current theories of planetesimal formation. These results support the possibility that large protoplanetary disk rings evolve into the known cold debris disks. The inferred strong evolutionary connection between protoplanetary disks with large rings and mature stars with cold debris disks implies that the remaining majority population of low-mass stars with compact protoplanetary disks leaves behind only modest masses of residual solids at large radii and evolves primarily into mature stars without detectable debris beyond 30 au. The approach outlined here illustrates how combining observations with detailed evolutionary models of solids strongly constrains the global evolution of disk solids and underlying physical parameters such as the efficiency of planetesimal formation and the possible existence of invisible reservoirs of solids in protoplanetary disks.

Multifarious Roles of Hidden Chiral-Scale Symmetry: “Quenching” gA in Nuclei

I discuss how the axial current coupling constant gA renormalized in scale symmetric chiral EFT defined at a chiral matching scale impacts on the axial current matrix elements on beta decays in nuclei with and without neutrinos. The “quenched” gA observed in nuclear superallowed Gamow–Teller transitions, a long-standing puzzle in nuclear physics, is shown to encode the emergence of chiral-scale symmetry hidden in QCD in the vacuum. This enables one to explore how trace-anomaly-induced scale symmetry breaking enters in the renormalized gA in nuclei applicable to certain non-unique forbidden processes involved in neutrinoless double beta decays. A parallel is made between the roles of chiral-scale symmetry in quenching gA in highly dense medium and in hadron–quark continuity in the EoS of dense matter in massive compact stars. A systematic chiral-scale EFT, presently lacking in nuclear theory and potentially crucial for the future progress, is suggested as a challenge in the field.

Superfluid Neutron Matter with a Twist

Superfluid neutron matter is a key ingredient in the composition of neutron stars. The physics of the inner crust are largely dependent on those of its S-wave neutron superfluid, which has made its presence known through pulsar glitches and modifications in neutron star cooling. Moreover, with recent gravitational-wave observations of neutron star mergers, the need for an equation of state for the matter of these compact stars is further accentuated and a model-independent treatment of neutron superfluidity is important. Ab initio techniques developed for finite systems can be guided to perform extrapolations to the thermodynamic limit and attain this model-independent extraction of various quantities of infinite superfluid neutron matter. To inform such an extrapolation scheme, we performed calculations of the neutron 1S0 pairing gap using model-independent odd–even staggering in the context of the particle-conserving, projected Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) theory under twisted boundary conditions. While the practice of twisted boundary conditions is standard in solid-state physics and has been used repeatedly in the past to reduce finite-size effects, this is the first time that it has been employed in the context of pairing. We find that a twist-averaging approach results in a substantial reduction of the finite-size effects, bringing systems with N⪆50 within a 2% error margin from the infinite system. This can significantly reduce extrapolation-related errors in the extraction of superfluid neutron matter quantities.

Nuclear clusters as the first stepping stones for the chemical evolution of the universe

It is a well-established fact that the generation of the heavy elements occurred in stars—the Cauldrons of the Cosmos—via multiple complex nuclear reaction processes during stellar life and death. This paper will address the question of the first step, the formation of heavier elements such as carbon and oxygen from the primordial elemental abundance distribution in first stars. This nucleosynthesis can be facilitated by nuclear clustering of primordial isotopes in hot and highly convective first stars, provided that a helium rich or hydrogen depleted environment is available. The paper will summarize the associated nuclear reactions and the nucleosynthesis paths linking $$^4$$ He to $$^{12}$$ C. This will be based on an analysis of new experimental data for several of the anticipated nuclear reactions, and the role they might play at different temperature and density conditions in first star matter.

Quark star matter in heavy quark stars

We study the thermodynamic properties of asymmetric quark matter and large mass quark stars within the confined-isospin-density-dependent-quark-mass model. We find that the quark matter symmetry energy should be very large in order to describe the recent discovered heavy compact stars PSR J0348+0432 (text {2.01}pm text {0.04}M_{odot }), MSP J0740+6620 (text {2.14}pm ^text {0.10}_text {0.09}M_{odot } of 68.3% credibility interval and text {2.14}pm ^text {0.20}_text {0.18}M_{odot } of 95.4% credibility interval) and PSR J2215+5135 (2.27pm ^text {0.10}_text {0.09}M_{odot }) as QSs. The tidal deformability Lambda _{1.4} of the QSs is also investigated in this work, and the result indicates that Lambda _{1.4} may depend on the isospin effects and the strength / orientation distribution of the magnetic fields inside the quark stars.

On the stability of two-flavor and three-flavor quark matter in quark stars within the framework of NJL model

Following our recently proposed self-consistent mean field approximation approach, we have done some researches on the chiral phase transition of strong interaction matter within the framework of Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. The chiral susceptibility and equation of state (EOS) are computed in this work for both two-flavor and three-flavor quark matter for contrast. The Pauli–Villars scheme, which can preserve gauge invariance, is used in this paper. Moreover, whether the three-flavor quark matter is more stable than the two-flavor quark matter or not in quark stars is discussed in this work. In our model, when the bag constant are the same, the two-flavor quark matter has a higher pressure than the three-flavor quark matter, which is different from what Witten proposed in his pioneering work.

The Effect of Various Three-Body Forces on Nuclear Matter and Neutron Stars Properties

The binding energy per nucleon for nuclear matter, i.e., equation of state (EOS), within the Brueckner–Hartree–Fock (BHF) approach with the consideration of various three-body forces (3BFs) like the phenomenological 3BF and by adding a contact term to the BHF calculations are considered at variance densities. The 3BF contribution turns out to be nonnegligible contribution and to have a substantial saturation effect. The calculations are done utilizing the CD-Bonn and Argonne V18 nucleon–nucleon (NN) potentials. These NN potentials give great fitting to the deuteron properties and are phase-shift equivalent. The resultant EOS is compatible with the phenomenological analysis on the saturation point. It is demonstrated that the 3BF influences significantly on the nuclear matter EOS at high densities. Moreover, it is necessary for reproducing the empirical saturation properties for symmetric nuclear matter. The pressure has been also calculated and the suggested approaches reproduce fairly well agreement with the empirical data. We also examined the maximum neutron star masses which are close to two solar masses, which is again compatible with recent observational data. Comparison with other microscopic EOS is presented and discussed.

Estimating the masses of three neutron stars by twin kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations and innermost stable circular orbits: constraining equations of state

ABSTRACT We test the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) model derived by Shi, Zhang and Li by the like-standard deviations of the twin kilohertz (kHz) quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) frequencies when the modes of the MHD waves in the MHD model are recalculated. A group of approximate equations derived from the MHD equations in the MHD model are proposed. Consequently, the dependence of the twin kHz QPO frequencies on several neutron star (NS) parameters is determined by the approximate equations. Based on the selection criterion that NS parameters corresponding to the minimum like-standard deviation are the most reasonable parameters, the masses of the three NSs in 4U 0614+09, 4U 1636–53 and 4U 1608–52 are estimated as M < 2.60 M⊙, 2.00 M⊙ < M < 2.31 M⊙ and 2.17 M⊙ < M < 2.62 M⊙, respectively. According to these NS masses, some equations of state for the nuclear matter in compact stars can be ruled out.

The Planetary Luminosity Problem: “Missing Planets” and the Observational Consequences of Episodic Accretion

Abstract The high occurrence rates of spiral arms and large central clearings in protoplanetary disks, if interpreted as signposts of giant planets, indicate that gas giants commonly form as companions to young stars (<few Myr) at orbital separations of 10–300 au. However, attempts to directly image this giant planet population as companions to more mature stars (>10 Myr) have yielded few successes. This discrepancy could be explained if most giant planets form by “cold start,” i.e., by radiating away much of their formation energy as they assemble their mass, rendering them faint enough to elude detection at later times. In that case, giant planets should be bright at early times, during their accretion phase, and yet forming planets are detected only rarely through direct imaging techniques. Here we explore the possibility that the low detection rate of accreting planets is the result of episodic accretion through a circumplanetary disk. We also explore the possibility that the companion orbiting the Herbig Ae star HD 142527 may be a giant planet undergoing such an accretion outburst.

Neutron decay, dark matter and neutron stars

Following up on a suggestion that decay to a dark matter fermion might explain the 4σ discrepancy in the neutron lifetime, we consider the implications of such a fermion on neutron star structure. We find that including it reduces the maximum neutron star mass to well below the observed masses. In order to recover stars with the observed masses, the (repulsive) self-interactions of the dark fermion would have to be stronger than those of the nucleon-nucleon interaction.

Strange matter in compact stars

We discuss possible scenarios for the existence of strange matter in compact stars. The appearance of hyperons leads to a hyperon puzzle in ab-initio approaches based on effective baryon-baryon potentials but is not a severe problem in relativistic mean field models. In general, the puzzle can be resolved in a natural way if hadronic matter gets stiffened at supersaturation densities, an effect based on the quark Pauli quenching between hadrons. We explain the conflict between the necessity to implement dynamical chiral symmetry breaking into a model description and the conditions for the appearance of absolutely stable strange quark matter that require both, approximately masslessness of quarks and a mechanism of confinement. The role of strangeness in compact stars (hadronic or quark matter realizations) remains unsettled. It is not excluded that strangeness plays no role in compact stars at all. To answer the question whether the case of absolutely stable strange quark matter can be excluded on theoretical grounds requires an understanding of dense matter that we have not yet reached.

Dense and hot matter in compact stars and heavy-ion collisions

We discuss the effect of exotic particles in neutron star matter and the corresponding impact on gross properties of neutron stars within effective models for the strong interaction. Particularly, for the quark-hadron parity-doublet model, we show results for compact star properties and discuss the phase structure of the model and its possible relevance for heavy-ion collision phenomenology.

Quark matter and quark stars at finite temperature in Nambu\u2013Jona-Lasinio model

We extend the SU(3) Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model to include two types of vector interaction. Using these two types of vector interaction in NJL model, we study the quark symmetry free energy in asymmetric quark matter, the constituent quark mass, the quark fraction, the equation of state (EOS) for beta -equilibrium quark matter, the maximum mass of QSs at finite temperature, the maximum mass of proto-quark stars (PQSs) along the star evolution, and the effects of the vector interaction on the QCD phase diagram. We find that comparing zero temperature case, the values of quark matter symmetry free energy get larger with temperature increasing, which will reduce the difference between the fraction of u, d and s quarks and stiffen the EoS for beta -equilibrium quark matter. In particular, our results indicate that the maximum masses of the quark stars increase with temperature because of the effects of the quark matter symmetry free energy, and we find that the heating(cooling) process for PQSs will increase (decrease) the maximum mass within NJL model.

How stars matter: Recruiting and peer effects in evolutionary biology

The peer-effects literature highlights several distinct channels through which colleagues may affect individual and organizational performance. Building on this, we examine the relative contributions of different channels by decomposing the productivity effect of a star's arrival on (1) incumbents and (2) new recruits. Using longitudinal, university-level data, we report that hiring a star does not increase overall incumbent productivity, although this aggregate effect hides offsetting effects on related (positive) versus unrelated (negative) colleagues. However, the primary impact comes from an increase in the average quality of subsequent recruits, an effect that is most pronounced at non-highly-ranked institutions. We discuss the implications of our results for star-focused strategies to improve organizational performance.

A hot Jupiter around the very active weak-line T Tauri star TAP 26

We report the results of an extended spectropolarimetric and photometric monitoring of the weak-line T Tauri star TAP 26, carried out within the MaTYSSE programme with the ESPaDOnS spectropolarimeter at the 3.6 m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Applying Zeeman-Doppler Imaging to our observations, concentrating in 2015 November and 2016 January and spanning 72 d in total, 16 d in 2015 November and 13 d in 2016 January, we reconstruct surface brightness and magnetic field maps for both epochs and demonstrate that both distributions exhibit temporal evolution not explained by differential rotation alone. We report the detection of a hot Jupiter (hJ) around TAP 26 using three different methods, two using Zeeman-Doppler Imaging (ZDI) and one Gaussian-Process Regression (GPR), with a false-alarm probability smaller than 6.10^-4. However, as a result of the aliasing related to the observing window, the orbital period cannot be uniquely determined; the orbital period with highest likelihood is 10.79 +/- 0.14 d followed by 8.99 +/- 0.09 d. Assuming the most likely period, and that the planet orbits in the stellar equatorial plane, we obtain that the planet has a minimum mass M.sin(i) of 1.66 +/- 0.31 M_Jup and orbits at 0.0968 +/- 0.0032 au from its host star. This new detection suggests that disc type II migration is efficient at generating newborn hJs, and that hJs may be more frequent around young T Tauri stars than around mature stars (or that the MaTYSSE sample is biased towards hJ-hosting stars).

Asymmetric nuclear matter and neutron star properties within the extended Brueckner theory

Microscopically, the equation of state (EOS) and other properties of asymmetric nuclear matter at zero temperature have been investigated extensively by adopting the non-relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (BHF) and the extended BHF approaches by using the self-consistent Green’s function approach or by including a phenomenological three-body force. Once three-body forces are introduced, the phenomenological saturation point is reproduced and the theory is applied to the study of neutron star properties. We can calculate the total mass and radius for neutron stars using various equations of state at high densities in $ \beta$ -equilibrium without hyperons. A comparison with other microscopic predictions based on non-relativistic and density-dependent relativistic mean-field calculations has been done. It is found that relativistic EOS yields however larger mass and radius for neutron star than predictions based on non-relativistic approaches. Also the three-body force plays a crucial role to deduce the theoretical value of the maximum mass of neutron stars in agreement with recent measurements of the neutron star mass.

A Neptune-sized transiting planet closely orbiting a 5–10-million-year-old star.

Theories of the formation and early evolution of planetary systems postulate that planets are born in circumstellar disks, and undergo radial migration during and after dissipation of the dust and gas disk from which they formed. The precise ages of meteorites indicate that planetesimals—the building blocks of planets—are produced within the first million years of a star’s life. Fully formed planets are frequently detected on short orbital periods around mature stars. Some theories suggest that the in situ formation of planets close to their host stars is unlikely and that the existence of such planets is therefore evidence of large-scale migration. Other theories posit that planet assembly at small orbital separations may be common. Here we report a newly born, transiting planet orbiting its star with a period of 5.4 days. The planet is 50 per cent larger than Neptune, and its mass is less than 3.6 times that of Jupiter (at 99.7 per cent confidence), with a true mass likely to be similar to that of Neptune. The star is 5–10 million years old and has a tenuous dust disk extending outward from about twice the Earth–Sun separation, in addition to the fully formed planet located at less than one-twentieth of the Earth–Sun separation.

Three-body force effect on the properties of neutron-rich nuclear matter

We review our research work on the single-particle properties and the equation of state (EOS) of isospin asymmetric nuclear matter within the framework of the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (BHF) approach extended by including a microscopic three-body force (TBF). The TBF is shown to affect significantly the nuclear matter EOS and the density dependence of nuclear symmetry energy at high densities above the normal nuclear matter density, and it is necessary for reproducing the empirical saturation property of symmetric nuclear matter in a nonrelativistic microscopic framework. The TBF-induced rearrangement effect and the ground state (g.s.) correlation effect on the s.p. properties in neutron-rich nuclear matter are investigated. Both effects turn out to be crucial for predicting reliably the s.p. properties within the Brueckner framework. The TBF effect on nucleon superfluidity in neutron star matter and neutron stars has also been discussed.