arXiv subjects

Eleonora Zari

Publications and source records attributed to Eleonora Zari.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

ABYSS. IV. Identifying signatures of stellar youth in APOGEE spectra

We develop a convolutional neural network classifier that performs spectroscopic identification of stellar youth (<40 Myr) in APOGEE spectra. This classifier is sensitive to several youth-related features, including rotational broadening, which is common in younger stars, and to several discrete lines that appear to be indicative of a very spotted photosphere. The model is successful at identifying youth across a wide range of stars, achieving its strongest performance at discriminating young M and K dwarfs, while maintaining useful discriminatory power for hotter stars as well. This work enables more robust separation of pre-main-sequence stars from more evolved sources in the field even when they have comparable Teff and log(g), providing a reliable means to substantially reduce contamination in photometrically selected YSO candidates. In addition to constructing a classifier for APOGEE spectra, we also perform classification of young stars in optical BOSS spectra.

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arXiv2026

A Galactic intermediate-mass stripped star with a Wolf-Rayet-like wind

Binary interaction in massive stars is expected to produce a large population of intermediate-mass ($2$-$8$ M$_\odot$) envelope-stripped stars, yet such objects have remained elusive in the Milky Way. We report the identification of an unambiguous Galactic example in a short-period ($P=5.94$ d), double-lined spectroscopic binary, discovered in the SDSS-V Milky Way Mapper survey. The system consists of a rapidly rotating O-type star and a hotter, lower-mass companion, which shows He II and N IV emission lines with large radial velocity variations, revealing its binary nature. Combined orbital constraints and joint spectroscopic and photometric modelling show that the companion is a hot ($T_\ast \approx 60$ kK), helium-rich star with a mass of $3.2$-$5.8$ M$_\odot$, placing it squarely in the intermediate-mass regime and below values typically inferred for classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. The system's short period, negligible eccentricity, and rapidly rotating O-star point to a post-interaction configuration following efficient mass transfer and spin-up of the accretor. Comparison with binary evolution models suggests that the stripped star is observed in a brief inflated phase following mass transfer, which increases its optical flux contribution and facilitates its detection. The inferred mass-loss rate $\log \dot{M} = -6.3 \pm 0.1$ is in line with mass-loss rates observed for classical WR stars in the Milky Way and exceeds those measured for intermediate-mass stripped stars in the Magellanic Clouds, with the caveat that our target selection is biased towards systems with stronger emission features. As an unambiguous and well-characterised intermediate-mass stripped star, this system provides a key benchmark for models of binary evolution at solar metallicity, stripped-envelope supernova progenitors, and the formation of compact-object binaries.

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arXiv2026

The DESIRED temperature-metallicity relations in star-forming regions: probing the Galactic radial and azimuthal metallicity distributions

We analyse a sample of 225 star-forming regions from the DESIRED-E project, each with simultaneous determinations of the electron temperature from ionized nitrogen and oxygen, $T_{\rm e}$([NII]) and $T_{\rm e}$([OIII]), respectively. We derive new empirical relations connecting the gas-phase metallicity to the global electron temperature, $T_{\rm e}$(H$^+$), as determined via radio observations. We establish two calibrations: one assuming a homogeneous temperature distribution ($t^2 = 0$, the ``direct method''), and another accounting for internal temperature fluctuations ($t^2 > 0$). Applying these calibrations to 460 radio observations of Galactic HII~regions spanning Galactocentric distances from $\sim0.1$ to 16 kpc, we determine the radial O/H gradient in the Milky Way under both assumptions. We further compare these nebular gradients to independent metallicity estimates from young O- and B-type stars and Cepheid variables. We find that the $t^2 > 0$ calibration yields a gradient in excellent agreement with stellar-based determinations, whereas the $t^2 = 0$ method underestimates metallicities by up to $\sim$0.3 dex. This discrepancy cannot be reconciled by invoking oxygen depletion onto dust grains or nucleosynthetic processing via the CNO cycle in massive stars. We also find that one widely used relation in the literature, assuming $t^2 = 0$, produces an excessively steep gradient -- likely due to the use of outdated atomic data and pre-CCD observations. Finally, we explore potential azimuthal variations in the Galactic metallicity distribution driven by the presence of the spiral arms, finding no evidence for variations larger than $\sim$0.1 dex with respect to the general radial gradient.

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arXiv2025

The large-scale kinematics of young stars in the Milky Way disc: first results from SDSS-V

We present a first large-scale kinematic map of $\sim$50,000 young OB stars ($T_{\rm eff} \geq 10,000$ K), based on BOSS spectroscopy from the Milky Way Mapper OB program in the ongoing Sloan Digital Sky Survey V (SDSS-V). Using photogeometric distances, line-of-sight velocities and Gaia DR3 proper motions, we map 3D Galactocentric velocities across the Galactic plane to $\sim$5 kpc from the Sun, with a focus on radial motions ($v_R$). Our results reveal mean radial motion with amplitudes of $\pm 30$ km/s that are coherent on kiloparsec scales, alternating between inward and outward motions. These $\bar{v}_R$ amplitudes are considerably higher than those observed for older, red giant populations. These kinematic patterns show only a weak correlation with spiral arm over-densities. Age estimates, derived from MIST isochrones, indicate that 85% of the sample is younger than $\sim300$ Myr and that the youngest stars ($\le 30$ Myr) align well with density enhancements. The age-dependent $\bar{v}_R$ in Auriga makes it plausible that younger stars exhibits different velocity variations than older giants. The origin of the radial velocity features remains uncertain, and may result from a combination of factors, including spiral arm dynamics, the Galactic bar, resonant interactions, or phase mixing following a perturbation. The present analysis is based on approximately one-third of the full target sample. The completed survey will enable a more comprehensive investigation of these features and a detailed dynamical interpretation.

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arXiv2025

Investigating silicate, carbon, and water in the diffuse interstellar medium: the first shots from WISCI

The dusty interstellar medium (ISM) of the Milky Way is distributed in a complex, cloudy structure. It is fundamental to the radiation balance within the Milky Way, provides a reaction surface to form complex molecules, and is the feedstock for future generations of stars and planets. The life cycle of interstellar dust is not completely understood, and neither are its structure nor composition. The abundance, composition, and structure of dust in the diffuse ISM can be determined by combining infrared, optical and ultraviolet spectroscopy. JWST enables measurement of the faint absorption of ISM dust grains against bright stars at kiloparsec distances across the infrared spectrum. Here we present an overview of the project `Webb Investigation of Silicates, Carbons, and Ices' (WISCI) along with interpretation of two targets, GSC 08152-02121 and CPD-59 5831. Observations of 12 WISCI target stars were taken by JWST, the Hubble Space Telescope, Himalayan Chandra Telescope, and the Very Large Telescope. We use these to characterize the targets' spectral types and calculate their line-of-sight extinction parameters, $A_{\rm V}$ and $R_{\rm V}$. We find absorption in the JWST spectra of GSC 08152-02121, and CPD-59 5831 associated with carbonaceous dust around 3.4 and 6.2 micron and amorphous silicates at 9.7 micron. In GSC 08152-02121 we also find indications of absorption by trapped water around 3 micron. This first look from WISCI demonstrates the line-of-sight variability within the sample, and the program's potential to identify and correlate features across ultraviolet to mid-infrared wavelengths.

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arXiv2025

Procedures for Constraining Robotic Fiber Positioning for Highly Multiplexed Spectroscopic Surveys: The Case of FPS for SDSS-V

One crucial aspect of planning any large scale astronomical survey is constructing an observing strategy that maximizes reduced data quality. This is especially important for surveys that are rather heterogeneous and broad-ranging in their science goals. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey V (SDSS-V), which now utilizes the Focal Plane System (FPS) to robotically place fibers that feed the spectrographs, certainly meets these criteria. The addition of the FPS facilities an increase in survey efficiency, number of targets and target diversity, but also means the positions of fibers must be constrained to allow for simultaneous observations of sometimes competing programs. The constraints on the positions of the fibers are clearly driven by properties of the science targets e.g., the type of target, brightness of the target, position of the target relative to others in the field, etc. The parameters used to describe these constraints will also depend on the intended science goal of the observation, which will vary with the types of objects requested for the particular observation and the planned sky conditions for the observation. In this work, we detail the SDSS-V data collection scenarios, which consist of sets of parameters that serve as the framework for constraining fiber placements. The numerical values of these parameters were set based on either past experiences or from a series of new tests, which we describe in detail here. These parameters allow a survey like SDSS-V to be algorithmically planned to maximize the science output, while guaranteeing data quality throughout its operation.

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arXiv2025

robostrategy: Field and Target Assignment Optimization in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey V

We present an algorithmic method for efficiently planning a long-term, large-scale multi-object spectroscopy program. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey V (SDSS-V) Focal Plane System performs multi-object spectroscopy using 500 robotic positioners to place fibers feeding optical and infrared spectrographs across a wide field. SDSS-V uses this system to observe targets throughout the year at two observatories in support of the science goals of its Milky Way Mapper and Black Hole Mapper programs. These science goals require observations of objects over time with preferred temporal spacinges (referred to as "cadences"), which can differ from object to object even in the same area of sky. robostrategy is the software we use to construct our planned observations so that they can best achieve the desired goals given the time available as a function of sky brightness and local sidereal time, and to assign fibers to targets during specific observations. We use linear programming techniques to seek optimal allocations of time under the constraints given. We present the methods and example results obtained with this software.

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arXiv2025

A Novel Method to Estimate the FUV Flux and a Catalogue for Star-Hosting Discs in Nearby Star-Forming Regions

Protoplanetary discs, when externally irradiated by Far Ultraviolet (FUV) photons from OBA-type stars, lose material through photoevaporative winds, reducing the amount of material available to form planets. Understanding the link between environmental irradiation and observed disc properties requires accurately evaluating the FUV flux at star-hosting discs, which can be challenging due stellar parallax uncertainties. In this paper, we address this issue proposing a novel approach: using the local density distribution of a star-forming region (i.e. 2D pairwise star separations distribution) and assuming isotropy, we infer 3D separations between star-hosting discs and massive stars. We test this approach on synthetic clusters, showing that it significantly improves the accuracy compared to previous methods. We compute FUV fluxes for a large sample of star-bearing discs in 7 regions within 200 pc, 6 regions in Orion, and Serpens sub-regions, providing a publicly accessible catalogue. We find that discs in regions hosting late-type B and early-type A stars can reach non-negligible irradiation levels for disc evolution (10-100 G0). We investigate dust disc masses relative to FUV fluxes detecting hints of a negative correlation when restricting to average region ages. However, we emphasize the need for more stellar and disc measurements at >10^2 G0 to probe the dependence of disc properties on the environmental irradiation. Including average interstellar dust extinction, median FUV fluxes are not significantly attenuated, though this result may change if high-resolution 3D dust extinction maps were available. The method presented in this work is a powerful tool that can be expanded to additional regions.

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arXiv2024

The Age-Dependent Vertical Actions of Young Stars in the Galaxy

Stars in the Galactic disk are born on cold, nearly circular orbits with small vertical excursions. After their birth, their orbits evolve, driven by small- or large-scale perturbations in the Galactic disk's gravitational potential. Here, we study the vertical motions of young stars over their first few orbital periods, using a sample of OBA stars from \textit{Gaia} E/DR3, which includes radial velocities and ages $\tau$ from LAMOST. We constructed a parametric model for the time evolution of the stellar orbits' mean vertical actions $J_z$ as a function of Galactocentric radius, $R_{\mathrm{GC}}$. Accounting for data uncertainties, we use Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis in annuli of Galactocentric radius to constrain the model parameters. Our best-fit model shows a remarkably linear increase of vertical actions with age across all Galactocentric radii examined. Orbital \textit{heating} by random scattering could offer a straightforward interpretation for this trend. However, various other dynamical aspects of the Galactic disk, such as stars being born in a warped disk, might offer alternative explanations that could be tested in the future.

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arXiv2023

A red giant orbiting a black hole

We report spectroscopic and photometric follow-up of a dormant black hole (BH) candidate from Gaia DR3. The system, which we call Gaia BH2, contains a $\sim 1M_{\odot}$ red giant and a dark companion with mass $M_2 = 8.9\pm 0.3\,M_{\odot}$ that is very likely a BH. The orbital period, $P_{\rm orb} = 1277$ days, is much longer than that of any previously studied BH binary. Our radial velocity (RV) follow-up over a 7-month period spans more than 90% of the orbit's dynamic range in RV and is in excellent agreement with predictions of the Gaia solution. UV imaging and high-resolution optical spectra rule out all plausible luminous companions that could explain the orbit. The star is a bright ($G=12.3$), slightly metal-poor ($\rm [Fe/H]=-0.22$) low-luminosity giant ($T_{\rm eff}=4600\,\rm K$; $R = 7.8\,R_{\odot}$; $\log\left[g/\left({\rm cm\,s^{-2}}\right)\right] = 2.6$). The binary's orbit is moderately eccentric ($e=0.52$). The giant is strongly enhanced in $α-$elements, with $\rm [α/Fe] = +0.26$, but the system's Galactocentric orbit is typical of the thin disk. We obtained X-ray and radio nondetections of the source near periastron, which support BH accretion models in which the net accretion rate at the horizon is much lower than the Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton rate. At a distance of 1.16 kpc, Gaia BH2 is the second-nearest known BH, after Gaia BH1. Its orbit -- like that of Gaia BH1 -- seems too wide to have formed through common envelope evolution. Gaia BH1 and BH2 have orbital periods at opposite edges of the Gaia DR3 sensitivity curve, perhaps hinting at a bimodal intrinsic period distribution for wide BH binaries. Dormant BH binaries like Gaia BH1 and Gaia BH2 likely significantly outnumber their close, X-ray bright cousins, but their formation pathways remain uncertain.

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arXiv2023

VISIONS: The VISTA Star Formation Atlas -- I. Survey overview

VISIONS is an ESO public survey of five nearby (d < 500 pc) star-forming molecular cloud complexes that are canonically associated with the constellations of Chamaeleon, Corona Australis, Lupus, Ophiuchus, and Orion. The survey was carried out with VISTA, using VIRCAM, and collected data in the near-infrared passbands J, H, and Ks. With a total on-sky exposure time of 49.4 h VISIONS covers an area of 650 deg$^2$, and it was designed to build an infrared legacy archive similar to that of 2MASS. Taking place between April 2017 and March 2022, the observations yielded approximately 1.15 million images, which comprise 19 TB of raw data. The observations are grouped into three different subsurveys: The wide subsurvey comprises shallow, large-scale observations and has visited the star-forming complexes six times over the course of its execution. The deep subsurvey of dedicated high-sensitivity observations has collected data on the areas with the largest amounts of dust extinction. The control subsurvey includes observations of areas of low-to-negligible dust extinction. Using this strategy, the VISIONS survey offers multi-epoch position measurements, is able to access deeply embedded objects, and provides a baseline for statistical comparisons and sample completeness. In particular, VISIONS is designed to measure the proper motions of point sources with a precision of 1 mas/yr or better, when complemented with data from VHS. Hence, VISIONS can provide proper motions for sources inaccessible to Gaia. VISIONS will enable addressing a range of topics, including the 3D distribution and motion of embedded stars and the nearby interstellar medium, the identification and characterization of young stellar objects, the formation and evolution of embedded stellar clusters and their initial mass function, as well as the characteristics of interstellar dust and the reddening law.

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arXiv2023

ABYSS I: Targeting strategy for APOGEE & BOSS young star survey in SDSS-V

The fifth iteration of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V) is set to obtain optical and near-infrared spectra of $\sim$5 million stars of all ages and masses throughout the Milky Way. As a part of these efforts, APOGEE & BOSS Young Star Survey (ABYSS) will observe $\sim10^5$ stars with ages $<$30 Myr that have been selected using a set of homogeneous selection functions that make use of different tracers of youth. The ABYSS targeting strategy we describe in this paper is aimed to provide the largest spectroscopic census of young stars to-date. It consists of 8 different types of selection criteria that take the position on the HR diagram, infrared excess, variability, as well as the position in phase space in consideration. The resulting catalog of $\sim$200,000 sources (of which a half are expected to be observed) provides representative coverage of the young Galaxy, including both nearby diffuse associations as well as more distant massive complexes, reaching towards the inner Galaxy and the Galactic center.

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arXiv2022

Zeta-Payne: a fully automated spectrum analysis algorithm for the Milky Way Mapper program of the SDSS-V survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has recently initiated its 5th survey generation (SDSS-V), with a central focus on stellar spectroscopy. In particular, SDSS-V Milky Way Mapper program will deliver multi-epoch optical and near-infrared spectra for more than 5 million stars across the entire sky, covering a large range in stellar mass, surface temperature, evolutionary stage, and age. About 10% of those spectra will be of hot stars of OBAF spectral types, for whose analysis no established survey pipelines exist. Here we present the spectral analysis algorithm, Zeta-Payne, developed specifically to obtain stellar labels from SDSS-V spectra of stars with these spectral types and drawing on machine learning tools. We provide details of the algorithm training, its test on artificial spectra, and its validation on two control samples of real stars. Analysis with Zeta-Payne leads to only modest internal uncertainties in the near-IR with APOGEE (optical with BOSS): 3-10% (1-2%) for Teff, 5-30% (5-25%) for v*sin(i), 1.7-6.3 km/s(0.7-2.2 km/s) for RV, $<0.1$ dex ($<0.05$ dex) for log(g), and 0.4-0.5 dex (0.1 dex) for [M/H] of the star, respectively. We find a good agreement between atmospheric parameters of OBAF-type stars when inferred from their high- and low-resolution optical spectra. For most stellar labels the APOGEE spectra are (far) less informative than the BOSS spectra of these stars, while log(g), v*sin(i), and [M/H] are in most cases too uncertain for meaningful astrophysical interpretation. This makes BOSS low-resolution optical spectra better for stellar labels of OBAF-type stars, unless the latter are subject to high levels of extinction.

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arXiv2022

OB Associations

OB associations are low-density groups of young stars that are dispersing from their birth environment into the Galactic field. They are important for understanding the star formation process, early stellar evolution, the properties and distribution of young stars and the processes by which young stellar groups disperse. Recent observations, particularly from Gaia, have shown that associations are highly complex, with a high degree of spatial, kinematic and temporal substructure. The kinematics of associations have shown them to be globally unbound and expanding, with the majority of recent studies revealing evidence for clear expansion patterns in the association subgroups, suggesting the subgroups were more compact in the past. This expansion is often non-isotropic, arguing against a simple explosive expansion, as predicted by some models of residual gas expulsion. The star formation histories of associations are often complex, exhibit moderate age spreads and temporal substructure, but so far have failed to reveal simple patterns of star formation propagation (e.g., triggering). These results have challenged the historical paradigm of the origin of associations as the expanded remnants of dense star clusters and suggests instead that they originate as highly substructured systems without a linear star formation history, but with multiple clumps of stars that have since expanded and begun to overlap, producing the complex systems we observe today. This has wide-ranging consequences for the early formation environments of most stars and planetary systems, including our own Solar System.

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arXiv2021

A classifier for spurious astrometric solutions in Gaia EDR3

The Gaia early Data Release 3 has delivered exquisite astrometric data for 1.47 billion sources, which is revolutionizing many fields in astronomy. For a small fraction of these sources, the astrometric solutions are poor, and the reported values and uncertainties may not apply. Before any analysis, it is important to recognize and excise these spurious results - this is commonly done by means of quality flags in the Gaia catalog. Here, we devise a means of separating 'good' from 'bad' astrometric solutions that is an order of magnitude cleaner than any single flag: 99.3% pure and 97.3% complete, as validated on our test data. We devise an extensive sample of manifestly bad astrometric solutions, with parallax that is negative at > 4.5 sigma; and a corresponding sample of presumably good solutions, including sources in HEALPix pixels on the sky that do not contain such negative parallaxes, and sources that fall on the main sequence in a color-absolute magnitude diagram. We then train a neural network that uses 17 pertinent Gaia catalog entries and information about nearby sources to discriminate between these two samples, captured in a single 'astrometric fidelity' parameter. A diverse set of verification tests shows that our approach works very cleanly, including for sources with positive parallaxes. The main limitations of our approach are in the very low-SNR and the crowded regime. Our astrometric fidelities for all of eDR3 can be queried via the Virtual Observatory, our code and data are public.

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arXiv2021

Stellar labels for hot stars from low-resolution spectra - I. the HotPayne method and results for 330,000 stars from LAMOST DR6

We set out to determine stellar labels from low-resolution survey spectra of hot, OBA stars with effective temperature (Teff) higher than 7500K. This fills a gap in the scientific analysis of large spectroscopic stellar surveys such as LAMOST, which offers spectra for millions of stars at R=1800. We first explore the theoretical information content of such spectra for determining stellar labels, via the Cramér-Rao bound. We show that in the limit of perfect model spectra and observed spectra with S/N of 100, precise estimates are possible for a wide range of stellar labels: not only the effective temperature Teff, surface gravity logg, and projected rotation velocity vsini, but also the micro-turbulence velocity, Helium abundance and the elemental abundances [C/H], [N/H], [O/H], [Si/H], [S/H], and [Fe/H]. Our analysis illustrates that the temperature regime of around 9500K is challenging, as the dominant Balmer and Paschen line strength vary little with Teff. We implement the simultaneous fitting of these 11 stellar labels to LAMOST hot-star spectra using the Payne approach, drawing on Kurucz's ATLAS12/SYNTHE LTE spectra as the underlying models. We then obtain stellar parameter estimates for a sample of about 330,000 hot stars with LAMOST spectra, an increase by about two orders of magnitude in sample size. Among them, about 260,000 have good Gaia parallaxes (S/N>5), and more than 95 percent of them are luminous stars, mostly on the main sequence; the rest reflects lower luminosity evolved stars, such as hot subdwarfs and white dwarfs. We show that the fidelity of the abundance estimates is limited by the systematics of the underlying models, as they do not account for NLTE effects. Finally, we show the detailed distribution of vsini of stars with 8000-15,000K, illustrating that it extends to a sharp cut-off at the critical rotation velocity, across a wide range of temperatures.

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arXiv2020

Detailed 3D structure of OrionA in dust with Gaia DR2

The unprecedented astrometry from Gaia DR2 provides us with an opportunity to study in detail molecular clouds in the solar neighbourhood. Extracting the wealth of information in these data remains a challenge, however. We have further improved our Gaussian Processes-based, three-dimensional dust mapping technique to allow us to study molecular clouds in more detail. These improvements include a significantly better scaling of the computational cost with the number of stars, and taking into account distance uncertainties to individual stars. Using Gaia DR2 astrometry together with 2MASS and WISE photometry for 30 000 stars, we infer the distribution of dust out to 600 pc in the direction of the Orion A molecular cloud. We identify a bubble-like structure in front of Orion A, centred at a distance of about 350 pc from the Sun. The main Orion A structure is visible at slightly larger distances, and we clearly see a tail extending over 100 pc that is curved and slightly inclined to the line-of-sight. The location of our foreground structure coincides with 5-10 Myr old stellar populations, suggesting a star formation episode that predates that of the Orion Nebula Cluster itself. We identify also the main structure of the Orion B molecular cloud, and in addition discover a background component to this at a distance of about 460 pc from the Sun. Finally, we associate our dust components at different distances with the plane-of-the-sky magnetic field orientation as mapped by Planck. This provides valuable information for modelling the magnetic field in 3D around star forming regions.

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arXiv2020

Data-driven spectroscopic estimates of absolute magnitude, distance and binarity -- method and catalog of 16,002 O- and B-type stars from LAMOST

We present a data-driven method to estimate absolute magnitudes for O- and B-type stars from the LAMOST spectra, which we combine with {\it Gaia} parallaxes to infer distance and binarity. The method applies a neural network model trained on stars with precise {\it Gaia} parallax to the spectra and predicts $K_{\rm s}$-band absolute magnitudes $M_{Ks}$ with a precision of 0.25\,mag, which corresponds to a precision of 12\% in spectroscopic distance. For distant stars (e.g. $>5$\,kpc), the inclusion of constraints from spectroscopic $M_{Ks}$ significantly improves the distance estimates compared to inferences from {\it Gaia} parallax alone. Our method accommodates for emission line stars by first identifying them via PCA reconstructions and then treating them separately for the $M_{Ks}$ estimation. We also take into account unresolved binary/multiple stars, which we identify through deviations in the spectroscopic $M_{Ks}$ from the geometric $M_{Ks}$ inferred from {\it Gaia} parallax. This method of binary identification is particularly efficient for unresolved binaries with near equal-mass components and thus provides an useful supplementary way to identify unresolved binary or multiple-star systems. We present a catalog of spectroscopic $M_{Ks}$, extinction, distance, flags for emission lines, and binary classification for 16,002 OB stars from LAMOST DR5. As an illustration of the method, we determine the $M_{Ks}$ and distance to the enigmatic LB-1 system, where Liu et al. (2019) had argued for the presence of a black hole and incorrect parallax measurement, and we do not find evidence for errorneous {\it Gaia} parallax.

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