arXiv subjects

C. Jordi

Publications and source records attributed to C. Jordi.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Expanding associations in the Vela-Puppis region: 3D structure and kinematics of the young population

The Vela-Puppis region is known to host the Vela OB2 association as well as several young clusters featuring OB and pre-main sequence stars. Several spatial and kinematic subgroups have been identified in the recent years. By grouping stars based on their positions and velocity we can address the quetion of the dynamical history of the region and the mechanisms that drove stellar formation. The Gaia DR2 astrometry and photometry enables us to characterise the 3D spatial and 3D kinematic distribution of young stars and to estimate the ages of the identified components. We use an unsupervised classification method to group stars based on their proper motions and parallax. We perform a study of the expansion rates of the different identified groups from 3D velocities, and from corrected tangential velocities. We make use of theoretical isochrones to estimate ages. The young stars can be separated into seven main groups of different ages and kinematical distribution. All groups are found to be expanding, although the expansion is mostly not isotropic. The size of the region, the age substructure, and the anistropic expansion rates are compatible with a prolonged period of star formation in a turbulent molecular cloud, and that the dispersion of the stars cannot be explained by gas expulsion alone.

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arXiv2019

The extended halo of NGC 2682 (M 67) from Gaia DR2

Context: NGC 2682 is a nearby open cluster, approximately 3.5 Gyr old. Dynamically, most open clusters should dissolve on shorter timescales, of ~ 1 Gyr. Having survived until now, NGC 2682 was likely much more massive in the past, and is bound to have an interesting dynamical history. Aims: We investigate the spatial distribution of NGC 2682 stars to constrain its dynamical evolution, especially focusing on the marginally bound stars in the cluster outskirts. Methods: We use Gaia DR2 data to identify NGC 2682 members up to a distance of ~150 pc (10 degrees). Two methods (Clusterix and UPMASK) are applied to this end. We estimate distances to obtain three-dimensional stellar positions using a Bayesian approach to parallax inversion, with an appropriate prior for star clusters. We calculate the orbit of NGC 2682 using the GRAVPOT16 software. Results: The cluster extends up to 200 arcmin (50 pc) which implies that its size is at least twice as previously believed. This exceeds the cluster Hill sphere based on the Galactic potential at the distance of NGC 2682. Conclusions: The extra-tidal stars in NGC 2682 may originate from external perturbations such as disk shocking or dynamical evaporation from two-body relaxation. The former origin is plausible given the orbit of NGC 2682, which crossed the Galactic disk ~40 Myr ago.

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arXiv2019

Gaia DR2 unravels incompleteness of nearby cluster population: New open clusters in the direction of Perseus

Open clusters (OCs) are popular tracers of the structure and evolutionary history of the Galactic disk. The OC population is often considered to be complete within 1.8 kpc of the Sun. The recent Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) allows the latter claim to be challenged. We perform a systematic search for new OCs in the direction of Perseus using precise and accurate astrometry from Gaia DR2. We implement a coarse-to-fine search method. First, we exploit spatial proximity using a fast density-aware partitioning of the sky via a k-d tree in the spatial domain of Galactic coordinates, (l, b). Secondly, we employ a Gaussian mixture model in the proper motion space to quickly tag fields around OC candidates. Thirdly, we apply an unsupervised membership assignment method, UPMASK, to scrutinise the candidates. We visually inspect colour-magnitude diagrams to validate the detected objects. Finally, we perform a diagnostic to quantify the significance of each identified overdensity in proper motion and in parallax space We report the discovery of 41 new stellar clusters. This represents an increment of at least 20% of the previously known OC population in this volume of the Milky Way. We also report on the clear identification of NGC 886, an object previously considered an asterism. This letter challenges the previous claim of a near-complete sample of open clusters up to 1.8 kpc. Our results reveal that this claim requires revision, and a complete census of nearby open clusters is yet to be found.

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arXiv2019

Open cluster kinematics with Gaia DR2

Context. Open clusters are very good tracers of the evolution of the Galactic disc. Thanks to Gaia, their kinematics can be investigated with an unprecedented precision and accuracy. Aims. The distribution of open clusters in the 6D phase space is revisited with Gaia DR2. Methods. The weighted mean radial velocity of open clusters was determined, using the most probable members available from a previous astrometric investigation that also provided mean parallaxes and proper motions. Those parameters, all derived from Gaia DR2 only, were combined to provide the 6D phase space information of 861 clusters. The velocity distribution of nearby clusters was investigated, as well as the spatial and velocity distributions of the whole sample as a function of age. A high quality subsample was used to investigate some possible pairs and groups of clusters sharing the same Galactic position and velocity. Results. For the high quality sample that has 406 clusters, the median uncertainty of the weighted mean radial velocity is 0.5 km/s. The accuracy, assessed by comparison to ground-based high resolution spectroscopy, is better than 1 km/s. Open clusters nicely follow the velocity distribution of field stars in the close Solar neighbourhood previously revealed by Gaia DR2. As expected, the vertical distribution of young clusters is very flat but the novelty is the high precision to which this can be seen. The dispersion of vertical velocities of young clusters is at the level of 5 km/s. Clusters older than 1 Gyr span distances to the Galactic plane up to 1 kpc with a vertical velocity dispersion of 14 km/s, typical of the thin disc. Five pairs of clusters and one group with five members are possibly physically related. Other binary candidates previously identified turn out to be chance alignment.

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arXiv2019

Open clusters in APOGEE and GALAH: Combining Gaia and ground-based spectroscopic surveys

Context: Open clusters are ideal laboratories to investigate a variety of astrophysical topics, from the properties of the Galactic disk to stellar evolutionary models. Knowing their metallicity and possibly detailed chemical abundances is therefore important. However, the number of systems with chemical abundances determined from high resolution spectroscopy is still small.\\ Aims: To increase the number of open clusters with radial velocities and chemical abundances determined from high resolution spectroscopy we used publicly available catalogues of surveys in combination with Gaia data.\\ Methods: Open cluster stars have been identified in the APOGEE and GALAH spectroscopic surveys by cross-matching their latest data releases with stars for which high-probability astrometric membership has been derived in many clusters on the basis of the Gaia second data release.\\ Results: Radial velocities have been determined for 131 and 14 clusters from APOGEE and GALAH data, respectively. This is the first radial velocity determination from high resolution spectra for 16 systems. Iron abundances have been obtained for 90 and 14 systems from APOGEE and GALAH samples, respectively. To our knowledge 66 of these clusters (57 in APOGEE and 9 in GALAH) do not have previous determinations in the literature. For 90 and 7 clusters in the APOGEE and GALAH samples, respectively, we have also determined average abundances for Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Cr, Mn, and Ni.

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arXiv2019

Age determination for 269 $Gaia$ DR2 Open Clusters

$Context$. Gaia Second Data Release provides precise astrometry and photometry for more than 1.3 billion sources. This catalog opens a new era concerning the characterization of open clusters and test stellar models, paving the way for a better understanding of the disc properties. $Aims$. The aim of the paper is to improve the knowledge of cluster parameters, using only the unprecedented quality of the Gaia photometry and astrometry. $Methods$. We make use of the membership determination based on the precise Gaia astrometry and photometry. We apply anautomated Bayesian tool, BASE-9, to fit stellar isochrones on the observed G, GBP, GRP magnitudes of the high probability member stars. $Results$. We derive parameters such as age, distance modulus and extinction for a sample of 269 open clusters, selecting only low reddening objects and discarding very young clusters, for which techniques other than isochrone-fitting are more suitable for estimating ages.

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arXiv2018

A ring in a shell: the large-scale 6D structure of the Vela OB2 complex

The Vela OB2 association is a group of 10 Myr stars exhibiting a complex spatial and kinematic substructure. The all-sky Gaia DR2 catalogue contains proper motions, parallaxes (a proxy for distance) and photometry that allow us to separate the various components of Vela OB2. We characterise the distribution of the Vela OB2 stars on a large spatial scale, and study its internal kinematics and dynamic history. We make use of Gaia DR2 astrometry and published Gaia-ESO Survey data. We apply an unsupervised classification algorithm to determine groups of stars with common proper motions and parallaxes. We find that the association is made up of a number of small groups, with a total current mass over 2330 Msun. The three-dimensional distribution of these young stars trace the edge of the gas and dust structure known as the IRAS Vela Shell across 180 pc and shows clear signs of expansion. We propose a common history for Vela OB2 and the IRAS Vela Shell. The event that caused the expansion of the shell happened before the Vela OB2 stars formed, imprinted the expansion in the gas the stars formed from, and most likely triggered star formation.

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arXiv2018

Gaia Data Release 2: Observational Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams

We highlight the power of the Gaia DR2 in studying many fine structures of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD). Gaia allows us to present many different HRDs, depending in particular on stellar population selections. We do not aim here for completeness in terms of types of stars or stellar evolutionary aspects. Instead, we have chosen several illustrative examples. We describe some of the selections that can be made in Gaia DR2 to highlight the main structures of the Gaia HRDs. We select both field and cluster (open and globular) stars, compare the observations with previous classifications and with stellar evolutionary tracks, and we present variations of the Gaia HRD with age, metallicity, and kinematics. Late stages of stellar evolution such as hot subdwarfs, post-AGB stars, planetary nebulae, and white dwarfs are also analysed, as well as low-mass brown dwarf objects. The Gaia HRDs are unprecedented in both precision and coverage of the various Milky Way stellar populations and stellar evolutionary phases. Many fine structures of the HRDs are presented. The clear split of the white dwarf sequence into hydrogen and helium white dwarfs is presented for the first time in an HRD. The relation between kinematics and the HRD is nicely illustrated. Two different populations in a classical kinematic selection of the halo are unambiguously identified in the HRD. Membership and mean parameters for a selected list of open clusters are provided. They allow drawing very detailed cluster sequences, highlighting fine structures, and providing extremely precise empirical isochrones that will lead to more insight in stellar physics. Gaia DR2 demonstrates the potential of combining precise astrometry and photometry for large samples for studies in stellar evolution and stellar population and opens an entire new area for HRD-based studies.

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arXiv2018

A Gaia DR2 view of the Open Cluster population in the Milky Way

Open clusters are convenient probes of the structure and history of the Galactic disk. They are also fundamental to stellar evolution studies. The second Gaia data release contains precise astrometry at the sub-milliarcsecond level and homogeneous photometry at the mmag level, that can be used to characterise a large number of clusters over the entire sky. In this study we aim to a establish list of members and derive mean parameters, in particular distances, for as many clusters as possible, making use of Gaia data alone. We compile a list of thousands of known or putative clusters from the literature. We then apply an unsupervised membership assignment code, UPMASK, to the Gaia DR2 data contained within the fields of those clusters. We obtained a list of members and cluster parameters for 1229 clusters. As expected, the youngest clusters are seen to be tightly distributed near the Galactic plane and to trace the spiral arms of the Milky Way, while older objects are more uniformly distributed, deviate further from the plane, and tend to be located at larger Galactocentric distances. Thanks to the quality of GaiaDR2 astrometry, the fully homogeneous parameters derived in this study are the most precise to date. Furthermore, we report on the serendipitous discovery of 60 new open clusters in the fields analysed during this study.

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arXiv2018

Gaia Data Release 2: Photometric content and validation

Aims. We describe the photometric content of the second data release of the Gaia project (Gaia DR2) and its validation along with the quality of the data. Methods. The validation was mainly carried out using an internal analysis of the photometry. External comparisons were also made, but were limited by the precision and systematics that may be present in the external catalogues used. Results. In addition to the photometric quality assessment, we present the best estimates of the three photometric passbands. Various colour-colour transformations are also derived to enable the users to convert between the Gaia and commonly used passbands. Conclusions. The internal analysis of the data shows that the photometric calibrations can reach a precision as low as 2 mmag on individual CCD measurements. Other tests show that systematic effects are present in the data at the 10 mmag level.

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arXiv2018

A new method for unveiling Open Clusters in Gaia: new nearby Open Clusters confirmed by DR2

The publication of the Gaia Data Release 2 (Gaia DR2) opens a new era in Astronomy. It includes precise astrometric data (positions, proper motions and parallaxes) for more than $1.3$ billion sources, mostly stars. To analyse such a vast amount of new data, the use of data mining techniques and machine learning algorithms are mandatory. The search for Open Clusters, groups of stars that were born and move together, located in the disk, is a great example for the application of these techniques. Our aim is to develop a method to automatically explore the data space, requiring minimal manual intervention. We explore the performance of a density based clustering algorithm, DBSCAN, to find clusters in the data together with a supervised learning method such as an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to automatically distinguish between real Open Clusters and statistical clusters. The development and implementation of this method to a $5$-Dimensional space ($l$, $b$, $\varpi$, $μ_{α^*}$, $μ_δ$) to the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) data, and a posterior validation using Gaia DR2 data, lead to the proposal of a set of new nearby Open Clusters. We have developed a method to find OCs in astrometric data, designed to be applied to the full Gaia DR2 archive.

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arXiv2018

Gaia Data Release 2: processing of the photometric data

The second Gaia data release is based on 22 months of mission data with an average of 0.9 billion individual CCD observations per day. A data volume of this size and granularity requires a robust and reliable but still flexible system to achieve the demanding accuracy and precision constraints that Gaia is capable of delivering. The internal Gaia photometric system was initialised using an iterative process that is solely based on Gaia data. A set of calibrations was derived for the entire Gaia DR2 baseline and then used to produce the final mean source photometry. The photometric catalogue contains 2.5 billion sources comprised of three different grades depending on the availability of colour information and the procedure used to calibrate them: 1.5 billion gold, 144 million silver, and 0.9 billion bronze. These figures reflect the results of the photometric processing; the content of the data release will be different due to the validation and data quality filters applied during the catalogue preparation. The photometric processing pipeline, PhotPipe, implements all the processing and calibration workflows in terms of Map/Reduce jobs based on the Hadoop platform. This is the first example of a processing system for a large astrophysical survey project to make use of these technologies. The improvements in the generation of the integrated G-band fluxes, in the attitude modelling, in the cross-matching, and and in the identification of spurious detections led to a much cleaner input stream for the photometric processing. This, combined with the improvements in the definition of the internal photometric system and calibration flow, produced high-quality photometry. Hadoop proved to be an excellent platform choice for the implementation of PhotPipe in terms of overall performance, scalability, downtime, and manpower required for operations and maintenance.

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arXiv2018

Gaia Data Release 2: Catalogue validation

The second Gaia data release (DR2), contains very precise astrometric and photometric properties for more than one billion sources, astrophysical parameters for dozens of millions, radial velocities for millions, variability information for half a million of stellar sources and orbits for thousands of solar system objects. Before the Catalogue publication, these data have undergone dedicated validation processes. The goal of this paper is to describe the validation results in terms of completeness, accuracy and precision of the various Gaia DR2 data. The validation processes include a systematic analysis of the Catalogue content to detect anomalies, either individual errors or statistical properties, using statistical analysis, and comparisons to external data or to models. Although the astrometric, photometric and spectroscopic data are of unprecedented quality and quantity, it is shown that the data cannot be used without a dedicated attention to the limitations described here, in the Catalogue documentation and in accompanying papers. A particular emphasis is put on the caveats for the statistical use of the data in scientific exploitation.

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arXiv2018

Characterising Open Clusters in the solar neighbourhood with the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution

The Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) subset of the first Gaia catalogue contains an unprecedented sample of proper motions and parallaxes for two million stars brighter than G~12 mag. We take advantage of the full astrometric solution available for those stars to identify the members of known open clusters and compute mean cluster parameters using either TGAS or UCAC4 proper motions, and TGAS parallaxes. We apply an unsupervised membership assignment procedure to select high probability cluster members, we use a Bayesian/MCMC technique to fit stellar isochrones to the observed 2MASS JHK$_s$ magnitudes of the member stars and derive cluster parameters (age, metallicity, extinction, distance modulus), and we combine TGAS data with spectroscopic radial velocities to compute full Galactic orbits. We obtain mean astrometric parameters (proper motions and parallaxes) for 128 clusters closer than about 2 kpc, and cluster parameters from isochrone fitting for 26 of them located inside 1 kpc from the Sun. We show the orbital parameters obtained from integrating 36 orbits in a Galactic potential.

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arXiv2017

The Gaia-ESO Survey: open clusters in Gaia-DR1 - a way forward to stellar age calibration

We describe the methodologies that, taking advantage of Gaia-DR1 and the Gaia-ESO Survey data, enable the comparison of observed open star cluster sequences with stellar evolutionary models. The final, long-term goal is the exploitation of open clusters as age calibrators. We perform a homogeneous analysis of eight open clusters using the Gaia-DR1 TGAS catalogue for bright members, and information from the Gaia-ESO Survey for fainter stars. Cluster membership probabilities for the Gaia-ESO Survey targets are derived based on several spectroscopic tracers. The Gaia-ESO Survey also provides the cluster chemical composition. We obtain cluster parallaxes using two methods. The first one relies on the astrometric selection of a sample of bona fide members, while the other one fits the parallax distribution of a larger sample of TGAS sources. Ages and reddening values are recovered through a Bayesian analysis using the 2MASS magnitudes and three sets of standard models. Lithium depletion boundary (LDB) ages are also determined using literature observations and the same models employed for the Bayesian analysis. For all but one cluster, parallaxes derived by us agree with those presented in Gaia Collaboration et al. (2017), while a discrepancy is found for NGC 2516; we provide evidence supporting our own determination. Inferred cluster ages are robust against models and are generally consistent with literature values. The systematic parallax errors inherent in the Gaia DR1 data presently limit the precision of our results. Nevertheless, we have been able to place these eight clusters onto the same age scale for the first time, with good agreement between isochronal and LDB ages where there is overlap. Our approach appears promising and demonstrates the potential of combining Gaia and ground-based spectroscopic datasets.

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arXiv2017

NGC 6705 a young $α$-enhanced Open Cluster from OCCASO data

The stellar [$α$/Fe] abundance is sometimes used as a proxy for stellar age, following standard chemical evolution models for the Galaxy, as seen by different observational results. In this work we show that the Open Cluster NGC6705/M11 has a significant $α$-enhancement [$α$/Fe]$>0.1$ dex, despite its young age ($\sim$300 Myr), challenging the current paradigm. We use high resolution (R$>65,000$) high signal-to-noise ($\sim$70) spectra of 8 Red Clump stars, acquired within the OCCASO survey. We determine very accurate chemical abundances of several $α$ elements, using an equivalent width methodology (Si, Ca and Ti), and spectral synthesis fits (Mg and O). We obtain [Si/Fe]=$0.13\pm0.05$, [Mg/Fe]=$0.14\pm0.07$, [O/Fe]=$0.17\pm0.07$, [Ca/Fe]=$0.06\pm0.05$ and [Ti/Fe]=$0.03\pm0.03$. Our results place these cluster within the group of young [$α$/Fe]-enhanced field stars recently found by several authors in the literature. The ages of our stars have an uncertainty of around 50 Myr, much more precise than for field stars. By integrating the cluster's orbit in several non-axisymmetric Galactic potentials, we establish the M11's most likely birth radius to lie between 6.8-7.5 kpc from the Galactic center, not far from its current position. With the robust Open Cluster age scale, our results prove that a moderate [$α$/Fe]-enhancement is no guarantee for a star to be old, and that not all $α$-enhanced stars can be explained with an evolved blue straggler scenario. Based on our orbit calculations, we further argue against a Galactic bar origin of M11.

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arXiv2017

The open cluster King~1 in the second quadrant

We analyse the poorly-studied open cluster King~1 in the second Galactic quadrant. From wide-field photometry we have studied the spatial distribution of this cluster. We determined that the centre of King~1 is located at $α_{2000}=00^{\rm h}22^{\rm m}$ and $δ_{2000}=+64\degr23\arcmin$. By parameterizing the stellar density with a King profile we have obtained a central density of $ρ_{0}=6.5\pm0.2$ star arcmin$^{-2}$ and a core radius of $r_{\rm core}=1\farcm9\pm0\farcm2$. By comparing the observed color-magnitude diagram of King~1 with those of similar open clusters and with different sets of isochrones, we have estimated an age of $2.8\pm0.3$ Gyr, a distance modulus of $(m-M)_{\rm o}=10.6\pm0.1$ mag, and a reddening of $E(B-V)=0.80\pm0.05$ mag. To complete our analysis we acquired medium resolution spectra for 189 stars in the area of King~1. From their derived radial velocities we determined an average velocity $\left\langle V_r\right\rangle $=-53.1$\pm$3.1 km s$^{-1}$. From the strength of the infrared \mbox{Ca\,{\sc ii}} lines in red giants we have determined an average metallicity of $\left\langle [M/H]\right\rangle$=+0.07$\pm$0.08 dex. From spectral synthesis we have also estimated an $α$-elements abundance of $\left\langle [α/M]\right\rangle$=-0.10$\pm$0.08 dex.

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arXiv2017

OCCASO II. Physical parameters and Fe abundances of Red Clump stars in 18 Open Clusters

Open Clusters have long been used to study the chemo-dynamical evolution of the Galactic disk. This requires an homogeneously analysed sample covering a wide range of ages and distances. In this aper we present the OCCASO second data release. This comprises a sample of high-resolution ($R>65,000$) and high signal-to-noise spectra of 115 Red Clump stars in 18 Open Clusters. We derive atmospheric parameters ($T_{\mathrm{eff}}$, $\log g$, $ξ$), and [Fe/H] abundances using two analysis techniques: equivalent widths and spectral synthesis. A detailed comparison and a critical review of the results of the two methods are made. Both methods are carefully tested between them, with the \emph{Gaia} FGK Benchmark stars, and with an extensive sample of literature values. We perform a membership study using radial velocities and the resulting abundances. Finally, we compare our results with a chemo-dynamical model of the Milky Way thin disk concluding that the oldest Open Clusters are consistent with the models only when dynamical effects are taken into account.

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