arXiv subjects

Yerra Bharat Kumar

Publications and source records attributed to Yerra Bharat Kumar.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Unveiling the nature of barium stars. I. Asteroseismic masses and the evolutionary link between Ba dwarfs and giants

Barium star systems are excellent sites for studying AGB nucleosynthesis, binary evolution, and mass transfer processes. However, an accurate estimation of their fundamental stellar parameters is still lacking. Using TESS data, we made the first extensive asteroseismic mass measurements of 31 Ba giants and 13 Ba dwarfs. For some, we were able to measure $ΔP$, ascertaining their evolutionary phase. We then constructed a grid of stellar models across the relevant mass range, where we accreted AGB material using composition from existing yields. We found that the average masses of the Ba dwarfs and Ba giants are significantly different ($1.29\pm0.09~\rm{M}_\odot$ versus $1.96\pm0.16~\rm{M}_\odot$, respectively). However, their mass distributions peak around $1.3~\rm{M}_\odot$. While our sample of Ba giants spans the low- and intermediate-mass regime, we found no intermediate-mass Ba dwarfs. The abundance trends of $s$-process elements show an overall anti-correlation with stellar mass, particularly in the low-mass regime. The stellar models adopting Monash AGB yields can satisfactorily reproduce the observed light elements, $s$, and heavy-$s$ abundance trends, with an accreted mass of $0.1-0.5~\rm{M}_\odot$, but fail to explain the [hs/ls] ratio. Our results support an evolutionary scenario in which Ba giants evolve from Ba dwarfs, with mass accretion occurring while the progenitor Ba star is still on the main sequence. In this scenario, a substantial number of intermediate-mass Ba dwarfs are expected. We found that post-accretion additional mixing in our models is critical to explain the observed $s$-process abundances in Ba dwarfs and the low C isotopic ratio ($<30$) in Ba giants. The mismatch between the model and the observed [hs/ls] ratio suggests that the chemical enrichment of Ba stars cannot be explained by standard single-star AGB yields alone (abridged for arXiv).

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arXiv2025

Asteroseismology of Carbon-Deficient Red Giants: Merger Products of Hierarchical Triple Systems?

Carbon-deficient giants (CDGs) are a rare and chemically peculiar class of stars whose origins remain under active investigation. We present an asteroseismic analysis of the entire known CDG population, selecting 129 stars observed by $Kepler$, K2, and TESS to obtain seismic constraints. We detect solar-like oscillations in 43 CDGs. By measuring $ν_{\rm max}$ and applying seismic scaling relations, we determine precise masses for these stars, finding that 79\% are low-mass ($M \lesssim 2~M_\odot$). The luminosity distribution is bimodal, and the CDGs separate into three chemically and evolutionarily distinct groups, characterized by clear trends in sodium and CNO abundances, $α$-element enhancement, and kinematics. We find that two of these groups are only distinguished by their initial $α$-element abundances, thus effectively reducing the number of groups to two. Lithium enrichment is common across all groups, linking CDGs to lithium-rich giants and suggesting a shared evolutionary origin. We find that spectroscopic $\log g$ is systematically offset from seismic values. Group~1 CDG patterns are most consistent with formation through core He-flash mixing, while the more massive and more chemically processed Groups~2 and 2$α$ likely formed through mergers involving helium white dwarfs, possibly in hierarchical triples. Pollution from AGB stars appears very unlikely, given the unchanged [C+N+O] abundance across all groups.

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arXiv2023

Asteroseismology sheds light on the origin of carbon-deficient red giants: likely merger products and linked to the Li-rich giants

Carbon-deficient red giants (CDGs) are a peculiar class of stars that have eluded explanation for decades. We aim to better characterise CDGs by using asteroseismology (Kepler, TESS) combined with spectroscopy (APOGEE, LAMOST), and astrometry (Gaia). We discovered 15 new CDGs in the Kepler field, and confirm that CDGs are rare, being only $0.15\%$ of our background sample. Remarkably, we find that our CDGs are almost exclusively in the red clump (RC) phase. Asteroseismic masses reveal that our CDGs are primarily low-mass stars ($M \lesssim$ 2~M$_{\odot}$), in contrast to previous studies which suggested they are intermediate mass ($M = 2.5 - 5.0~\rm M_{\odot}$) based on HR diagrams. A very high fraction of our CDGs ($50\%$) are also Li-rich giants. We observe a bimodal distribution of luminosity in our CDGs, with one group having normal RC luminosity and the other being a factor of two more luminous than expected for their masses. We find demarcations in chemical patterns and luminosities which lead us to split them into three groups: (i) normal-luminosity CDGs, (ii) over-luminous CDGs, and (iii) over-luminous highly-polluted CDGs. We conclude that a merger of a helium white dwarf with an RGB star is the most likely scenario for the two groups of over-luminous stars. Binary mass-transfer from intermediate-mass AGB stars is a possibility for the highly-polluted over-luminous group. For the normal-luminosity CDGs, we cannot distinguish between core He-flash pollution or lower-mass merger scenarios. Due to the overlap with the CDGs, Li-rich giants may have similar formation channels.

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arXiv2023

A large sample of newly-identified carbon-deficient red giants from APOGEE

Based on the APOGEE survey we conducted a search for carbon-deficient red giants (CDGs). We found 103 new CDGs, increasing the number in the literature by more than a factor of 3. CDGs are very rare, representing $0.03$~per cent of giants. They appear as an extended tail off the normal carbon distribution. We show that they are found in all components of the Galaxy, contrary to previous findings. The location of CDGs in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD) shows that they are primarily intermediate-mass stars ($2-4~\rm{M}_{\odot}$). Their extended distribution may indicate that CDGs can also sometimes have $M < 2.0~\rm{M}_{\odot}$. We attempted to identify the evolutionary phases of the CDGs using stellar model tracks. We found that the bulk of the CDGs are likely in the subgiant branch or red clump phase, whereas other CDGs may be in the red giant branch or early asymptotic giant branch phases. Degeneracy in the HRD makes exact identification difficult. We examined their C, N, and O compositions and confirmed previous studies showing that the envelope material has undergone extensive hydrogen burning through the CN(O) cycle. The new-CDGs have [C+N+O/Fe] that generally sum to zero, indicating that they started with scaled-solar composition. However, the previously known-CDGs generally have [C+N+O/Fe$] > 0.0$, indicating that some He-burning products were added to their envelopes. As to the site(s) in which this originally occurred, we do not find a convincing solution.

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arXiv2021

Discovery of 2716 hot emission-line stars from LAMOST DR5

We present a catalog of 3339 hot emission-line stars (ELS) identified from 451,695 O, B, and A type spectra, provided by the LAMOST DR5 release. We developed an automated python routine that identified 5437 spectra having a peak between 6561 and 6568~Å. False detections and bad spectra were removed, leaving 4138 good emission-line spectra of 3339 unique ELS. We re-estimated the spectral type of 3307 spectra as the LAMOST Stellar Parameter Pipeline (LASP) did not provide accurate spectral types for these emission-line spectra. As Herbig Ae/Be stars show higher excess in near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths than Classical Ae/Be stars, we used 2MASS and WISE photometry to distinguish them. Finally, we report 1089 Classical Be, 233 Classical Ae, and 56 Herbig Ae/Be stars identified from the LAMOST DR5. In addition, 928 B[em]/A[em] stars and 240 CAe/CBe potential candidates are identified. From our sample of 3339 hot emission-line stars, 2716 ELS identified in this work do not have any record in the SIMBAD database and they can be considered as new detections. Identification of such a large homogeneous set of emission-line spectra will help the community to study the emission phenomenon in detail without worrying about the inherent biases when compiling from various sources.

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arXiv2021

Tracking the evolution of lithium in giants using asteroseismology: Super-Li-rich stars are almost exclusively young red-clump stars

We report novel observational evidence on the evolutionary status of lithium-rich giant stars by combining asteroseismic and lithium abundance data. Comparing observations and models of the asteroseismic gravity-mode period spacing $ΔΠ_{1}$, we find that super-Li-rich giants (SLR, A(Li)~$> 3.2$~dex) are almost exclusively young red-clump (RC) stars. Depending on the exact phase of evolution, which requires more data to refine, SLR stars are either (i) less than $\sim 2$~Myr or (ii) less than $\sim40$~Myr past the main core helium flash (CHeF). Our observations set a strong upper limit for the time of the inferred Li-enrichment phase of $< 40$~Myr post-CHeF, lending support to the idea that lithium is produced around the time of the CHeF. In contrast, the more evolved RC stars ($> 40$~Myr post-CHeF) generally have low lithium abundances (A(Li)~$<1.0$~dex). Between the young, super-Li-rich phase, and the mostly old, Li-poor RC phase, there is an average reduction of lithium by about 3 orders of magnitude. This Li-destruction may occur rapidly. We find the situation to be less clear with stars having Li abundances between the two extremes of super-Li-rich and Li-poor. This group, the `Li-rich' stars ($3.2 >$~A(Li)~$> 1.0$~dex), shows a wide range of evolutionary states.

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arXiv2020

Discovery of ubiquitous lithium production in low-mass stars

The vast majority of stars with mass similar to the Sun are expected to only destroy lithium over the course of their lives, via low-temperature nuclear burning. This has now been supported by observations of hundreds of thousands of red giant stars (Brown et al. 1989, Kumar et al. 2011, Deepak et al. 2019, Singh et al. 2019, Casey et al. 2019). Here we perform the first large-scale systematic investigation into the Li content of stars in the red clump phase of evolution, which directly follows the red giant branch phase. Surprisingly we find that all red clump stars have high levels of lithium for their evolutionary stage. On average the lithium content increases by a factor of 40 after the end of the red giant branch stage. This suggests that all low-mass stars undergo a lithium production phase between the tip of the red giant branch and the red clump. We demonstrate that our finding is not predicted by stellar theory, revealing a stark tension between observations and models. We also show that the heavily studied (Brown et al. 1989, Reddy et al. 2005, Kumar et al. 2011, Singh et al. 2019, Casey et al. 2019) very Li-rich giants, with A(Li) $> +1.5$ dex, represent only the extreme tail of the lithium enhancement distribution, comprising 3% of red clump stars. Our findings suggest a new definition limit for Li-richness in red clump stars, A(Li) $> -0.9$ dex, which is much lower than the limit of A(Li) $> +1.5$ dex used over many decades (Brown et al. 1989, Castilho et al. 1995, Reddy et al. 2005, Carlberg et al. 2016, Casey et al. 2019, Holanda et al. 2020).

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arXiv2020

Stellar activity with LAMOST. III. Temporal variability pattern in Pleiades, Praesepe, and Hyades

We present the results from a systematic study of temporal variation of stellar activity in young late-type stars. We used multi-epoch LAMOST low-resolution spectra of over 300 member candidates in three young open clusters: Pleiades, Praesepe, and Hyades. The spectral measurements of TiO band strength near 7050 Å (TiO2) and equivalent width of Hα line (EW Hα ) are used as the tracers of cool-spot coverage and chromospheric emission strength, respectively. The analysis of time-variation patterns of these two tracers suggested there exist detectable variabilities in TiO2 and EW Hα , and their time-scales are in the wide range from days to years. Results showed that more active stars, younger and fast rotators, tend to have larger activity variations. There is a tendency of anti-correlation between temporal variations in TiO2 and EW Hα . Also, appreciable anti-correlation in the rotational phase between Hα emission and K2 brightness is detected in some M dwarfs, indicating spatial co-location of the plages with cool starspots, however, cool stars do not always show such co-location features. Furthermore, spot coverage and Hα emission were evident at all rotational phases of several M dwarfs, indicating a basal level of activity, perhaps due to many small and randomly located active regions in the atmosphere.

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arXiv2019

Survey of Li-rich giants among Kepler and LAMOST fields: Determination of Li-rich giants Evolutionary Phase

In this letter, we report the discovery of 24 new super Li-rich (A(Li) $\ge$ 3.2) giants of He-core burning phase at red clump region. Results are based on systematic search of a large sample of about 12,500 giants common to the LAMOST spectroscopic and Kepler time resolved photometric surveys. The two key parameters derived from Kepler data; average period spacing ($Δp$) between $l=1$ mixed gravity dominated g-modes and average large frequency separation ($Δν$) $l=0$ acoustic p-modes, suggest all the Li-rich giants are in He-core burning phase. This is the first unbiased survey subjected to a robust technique of asteroseismic analysis to unambiguously determine evolutionary phase of Li-rich giants. The results provide a strong evidence that Li enhancement phenomenon is associated with giants of He-core burning phase, post He-flash, rather than any other phase on RGB with inert He-core surrounded by H-burning shell.

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arXiv2018

Spectroscopic study of two new super Li rich red clump K giants

In this paper, we report the discovery of two new super Li-rich K giants: HD~24960 and TYC~1751-1713-1. Based on high resolution ($R\approx 60,000$) spectroscopy, we have derived Li abundance of A(Li)$\approx$4.0~dex for both stars. Other elemental abundances are normal of typical K giants. Low ratios of [C/N] $\leq$ $-$ 0.25 and $^{12}C/^{13}C \leq10$ suggest that the stars are in upper RGB phase. Further, based on Gaia astrometry and secondary calibrations using Kepler asteroseismic and LAMOST spectroscopic data, we argue that both stars belong to red clump (RC) phase with core He-burning. Results add to half a dozen already known red clump Li-rich K giants, and support the growing evidence that the origin of Li excess in RC giants seems to be associated with either He-flash at the tip of the red giant branch (RGB) or recent planet/ brown dwarf merger events closer to the RGB tip.

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arXiv2018

Two new Super Li-rich core He-burning giants: A new twist to the long tale of Li enhancement in K giants

In this paper we report two new super Li-rich K giants: KIC 2305930 and KIC 12645107 with Li abundances exceeding that of ISM (A(Li) $\geq$ 3.2 dex). Importantly, both the giants have been classified as core He-burning red clump stars based on asteroseismic data from Kepler mission. Also, both the stars are found to be low mass (M $\approx$ 1.0 M$_{\odot}$) which, together with an evidence of their evolutionary status of being red clump imply that the stars have gone through both the luminosity bump and He-flash during their RGB evolution. Stars' large Li abundance and evolutionary phase suggest that Li enrichment occurred very recently probably at the tip of RGB either during He-flash, an immediate preceding event on RGB, or by some kind of external event such as merger of RGB star with white dwarf. The findings will provide critical constraints to theoretical models for understanding of Li enhancement origin in RGB stars.

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arXiv2018

Stellar activity with LAMOST - II. Chromospheric activity in open clusters

We use the LAMOST spectra of member stars in Pleiades, M34, Praesepe, and Hyades to study how chromospheric activity vary as a function of mass and rotation at different age. We measured excess equivalent widths of H$α$, H$β$, and Ca~{\sc ii} K based on estimated chromospheric contributions from old and inactive field dwarfs, and excess luminosities are obtained by normalizing bolometric luminosity, for more than 700 late-type stars in these open clusters. Results indicate two activity sequences in cool spot coverage and H$α$ excess emission among GK dwarfs in Pleiades and M dwarfs in Praesepe and Hyades, paralleling with well known rotation sequences. A weak dependence of chromospheric emission on rotation exists among ultra fast rotators in saturated regime with Rossby number Ro$\lesssim0.1$. In the unsaturated regime, chromospheric and coronal emission show similar dependence on Ro, but with a shift toward larger Ro, indicating chromospheric emission gets easily saturated than coronal emission, and/or convective turnover time-scales based on X-ray data do not work well with chromospheric emission. More interestingly, our analysis show fully convective slow rotators obey the rotation-chromospheric activity relation similar to hotter stars, confirming the previous finding. We found correlations among H$α$, H$β$, and Ca~{\sc ii} K emissions, in which H$α$ losses are more important than Ca~{\sc ii} K for cooler and more active stars. In addition, a weak correlation is seen between chromospheric emission and photospheric activity that shows dependency on stellar spectral type and activity level, which provides some clues on how spot configuration vary as a function of mass and activity level.

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arXiv2017

Enormous Li-enhancement preceding red giant phases in low-mass stars in the Milky Way halo

Li abundances in the bulk of low-mass metal-poor stars are well reproduced by stellar evolution models adopting a constant initial abundance. However, a small number of stars have exceptionally high Li abundances, for which no convincing models have been established. We report on the discovery of 12 very metal-poor stars that have large excesses of Li, including an object having more than 100 times higher Li abundance than the values found in usual objects, which is the the largest excess in metal-poor stars known to date. The sample is distributed over a wide range of evolutionary stages, including five unevolved stars, showing no abundance anomaly in other elements. The results indicate the existence of an efficient process to enrich Li in a small fraction of low-mass stars at the main-sequence or subgiant phase. The wide distribution of Li-rich stars along the red giant branch could be explained by dilution of surface Li by mixing that occurs when the stars evolve into red giants. Our study narrows down the problem to be solved to understand the origins of Li-excess found in low-mass stars, suggesting the presence of unknown process that affects the surface abundances preceding red giant phases.

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arXiv2017

High-resolution Spectroscopy and Spectropolarimetry of Selected Delta Scuti Pulsating Variables

The combination of photometry, spectroscopy and spectropolarimetry of the chemically peculiar stars often aims to study the complex physical phenomena such as stellar pulsation, chemical inhomogeneity, magnetic field and their interplay with stellar atmosphere and circumstellar environment. The prime objective of the present study is to determine the atmospheric parameters of a set of Am stars to understand their evolutionary status. Atmospheric abundances and basic parameters are determined using full spectrum fitting technique by comparing the high-resolution spectra to the synthetic spectra. To know the evolutionary status we derive the effective temperature and luminosity from different methods and compare them with the literature. The location of these stars in the H-R diagram demonstrate that all the sample stars are evolved from the Zero-Age-Main-Sequence towards Terminal-Age-Main-Sequence and occupy the region of $δ$ Sct instability strip. The abundance analysis shows that the light elements e.g. Ca and Sc are underabundant while iron peak elements such as Ba, Ce etc. are overabundant and these chemical properties are typical for Am stars. The results obtained from the spectropolarimetric analysis shows that the longitudinal magnetic fields in all the studied stars are negligible that gives further support their Am class of peculiarity.

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arXiv2016

The Night Sky Spectrum of Xinglong Observatory: Changes from 2004 to 2015

We present spectroscopic measurements on the night sky of Xinglong Observatory for a period of 12 years from 2004 to 2015. The spectra were obtained on moonless clear nights using the OMR spectrograph mounted on a 2.16-m reflector with a wavelength coverage of 4000-7000A. The night sky spectrum shows the presence of emission lines from Hg I and Na I due to local artificial sources, along with the atmospheric emission lines, i.e., O I and OH molecules, indicating the existence of light pollution. We have monitored the night sky brightness during the whole night and found some decrement in the sky brightness with time, but the change is not significant. Also, we monitored the light pollution level in different azimuthal directions and found that the influence of light pollution from the direction of Beijing is stronger compared with that from the direction of Tangshan and other areas. An analysis of night sky spectra for the entire data set suggested that the zenith sky brightness of Xinglong Observatory has brightened by about 0.5 mag arcsec -2 in the V and B bands from 2004 to 2015. We recommend consecutive spectroscopic measurements of the night sky brightness at Xinglong Observatory in the future, not only for monitoring but also for scientific reference.

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arXiv2016

Stellar activity with LAMOST. I. Spot configuration in Pleiades

We use the spectra of Pleiades and field stars from LAMOST DR2 archive to study how spottedness and activity vary as a function of mass at young ages. We obtained standard TiO band strength by measuring TiO bands near 7050 $Å$ from LAMOST spectra (R$\approx$1800) for large sample of field GKM dwarfs with solar metallicity. Analysis show that active dwarfs, including late G- and early K-type, have extra TiO absorption compare to inactive counterparts, indicating the presence of cool spots on their surface. Active late K- and M-dwarfs show deeper TiO2 and shallower TiO4 compare to inactive stars at a given TiO5, which could be partly explained through cool spots. We estimated cool spot fractional coverage for 304 Pleiades candidates by modelling their TiO2 (&TiO5) band strength with respect to standard value. Results show that surface of large fraction of K- and M-type members have very large spot coverage ($\sim$50%). We analysed a correlation between spot coverage, rotation and the amplitude of light variation, and found spot coverage on slow rotators ($R_{o}$ > 0.1) increases with decreasing Rossby Number $R_{o}$. Interestingly, we detected a saturation-like feature for spot coverage in fast rotators with a saturation level of 40%-50%. In addition, spot distribution in hotter fast rotators show more symmetrical compare to slow rotators. More interestingly, we detected large spot coverage in many M type members with no or little light variation. In bigger picture, these results provide important constraints for stellar dynamo on these cool active stars.

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arXiv2016

The Nainital-Cape Survey-IV

The Nainital-Cape survey is a dedicated ongoing survey programme to search for and study pulsational variability in chemically peculiar (CP) stars to understand their internal structure and evolution. The main aims of this survey are to find new pulsating Ap and Am stars in the northern and southern hemisphere and to perform asteroseismic studies of these new pulsators. The survey is conducted using high-speed photometry. The candidate stars were selected on the basis of having Stromgren photometric indices similar to those of known pulsating CP stars. Over the last decade a total of 337 candidate pulsating CP stars were observed for the Nainital-Cape survey, making it one of the longest ground-based surveys for pulsation in CP stars in terms of time span and sample size. The previous papers of this series presented seven new pulsating variables and 229 null results. In this paper we present the light curves, frequency spectra and the various astrophysical parameters of the 108 additional CP stars observed since the last reported results. We have also tabulated the basic physical parameters of the known roAp stars. As part of establishing the detection limits in the Nainital-Cape survey, we investigated the scintillation noise level at the two observing sites used in this survey, Sutherland and Nainital, by comparing the combined frequency spectra stars observed from each location. Our analysis shows that both the sites permit the detection of variations on the order of 0.6 milli-magnitude (mmag) in the frequency range 1-4 mHz, with Sutherland being marginally better, on average.

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arXiv2011

Origin of lithium enrichment in K giants

In this Letter, we report on a low-resolution spectroscopic survey for Li-rich K giants among 2000 low mass (M <= 3 Msun) giants spanning the luminosity range from below to above the luminosity of the clump. Fifteen new Li-rich giants including four super Li-rich K giants (A(Li) >= 3.2) were discovered. A significant finding is that there is a concentration of Li-rich K giants at the luminosity of the clump or red horizontal branch. This new finding is partly a consequence of the fact that our low-resolution survey is the first large survey to include giants well below and above the RGB bump and clump locations in the HR diagram. Origin of the lithium enrichment may be plausibly attributed to the conversion of 3He via 7Be to 7Li by the Cameron-Fowler mechanism but the location for onset of the conversion is uncertain. Two possible opportunities to effect this conversion are discussed: the bump in the first ascent of the red giant branch (RGB) and the He-core flash at the tip of the RGB. The finite luminosity spread of the Li-rich giants serves to reject the idea that Li enhancement is, in general, a consequence of a giant swallowing a large planet.

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