arXiv subjects

Yoshifusa Ita

Publications and source records attributed to Yoshifusa Ita.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

The age and metallicity dependence of the near-infrared absolute magnitude and colour of red clump stars

Understanding the age and metallicity dependence of the absolute magnitude and colour of red clump (RC) stars is crucial for validating the accuracy of stellar evolution models and enhancing their reliability as a standard candle. However, this dependence has previously been investigated in the near-infrared across multiple bands only for -1.05 $\leq$ [Fe/H] $\leq$ 0.40, a range accessible through the star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Therefore, we used star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way Galaxy to investigate the age and metallicity dependence of the absolute magnitude and colour of RC stars in the near-infrared for a broader parameter space (0.45 $\leq$ Age (Gyr) $\leq$ 10.5, -1.65 $\leq$ [Fe/H] $\leq$ 0.32). Comparison of our results with three isochronous models BaSTI, PARSEC, and MIST reveals that the age dependence of the absolute magnitude for young RC stars aligns well with theoretical predictions, within the fitting errors of the multiple regression analysis. Additionally, the observed colour shows good agreement with the theoretical models. Notably, the $J - K_{S}$ colour, which spans a wide parameter space, reproduces the distribution expected from the theoretical model.

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arXiv2022

The Thirty Millimeter Telescope

A near-infrared telescope with an effective aperture diameter of thirty millimeters has been developed. The primary objective of the development is to observe northern bright stars in the $J$, $H$, and $K_{\rm s}$ bands and provide accurate photometric data on those stars. The second objective is to repeatedly observe a belt-like region along the northern Galactic plane ($|b| \le 5^\circ$ and $δ\ge -30^\circ$) to monitor bright variable stars there. The telescope has been in use since December 2016. The purpose of this paper is to describe the design and operational performances of the telescope, photometric calibration methods, and our scientific goals. We show that the telescope has the ability to provide photometry with an uncertainty of less than 5\% for stars brighter than 7, 6.5, and 6~mag in the $J$, $H$, and $K_{\rm s}$ bands, respectively. The repeatability of the photometric measurements for the same star is better than 1\% for bright stars. Our observations will provide accurate photometry on bright stars that are lacking in the Two Micron Sky Survey and the Two Micron All-Sky Survey. Repeated observations at a good cadence will also reveal their nature of the variability in the near-infrared.

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arXiv2022

A Very Metal-poor RR Lyrae Star with a Disk Orbit Found in the Solar Neighborhood

Metal-deficient stars are important tracers for understanding the early formation of the Galaxy. Recent large-scale surveys with both photometric and spectroscopic data have reported an increasing number of metal-deficient stars whose kinematic features are consistent with those of the disk stellar populations. We report the discovery of an RR~Lyrae variable (hereafter RRL) that is located within the thick disk and has an orbit consistent with the thick-disk kinematics. Our target RRL (HD 331986) is located at around 1 kpc from the Sun and, with V=11.3, is among the 130 brightest RRLs known so far. However, this object was scarcely studied because it is in the midplane of the Galaxy, the Galactic latitude around -1 deg. Its near-infrared spectrum (0.91-1.32 micron) shows no absorption line except hydrogen lines of the Paschen series, suggesting [Fe/H] less than -2.5. It is the most metal-deficient RRL, at least, among the RRLs whose orbits are consistent with the disk kinematics, although we cannot determine to which of the disk and the halo it belongs. This unique RRL would provide us with essential clues for studying the early formation of stars in the inner Galaxy with further investigations, including high-resolution optical spectroscopy.

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arXiv2021

Relationship between Radar Cross Section and Optical Magnitude based on Radar and Optical Simultaneous Observations of Faint Meteors

Radar and optical simultaneous observations of meteors are important to understand the size distribution of the interplanetary dust. However, faint meteors detected by high power large aperture radar observations, which are typically as faint as 10 mag. in optical, have not been detected until recently in optical observations, mainly due to insufficient sensitivity of the optical observations. In this paper, two radar and optical simultaneous observations were organized. The first observation was carried out in 2009 to 2010 using Middle and Upper Atmosphere Radar (MU radar) and an image-intensified CCD camera. The second observation was carried out in 2018 using the MU radar and a mosaic CMOS camera, Tomo-e Gozen, mounted on the 1.05-m Kiso Schmidt Telescope. In total, 331 simultaneous meteors were detected. The relationship between radar cross sections and optical V-band magnitudes was well approximated by a linear function. A transformation function from the radar cross section to the V-band magnitude was derived for sporadic meteors. The transformation function was applied to about 150,000 meteors detected by the MU radar in 2009--2015, large part of which are sporadic, and a luminosity function was derived in the magnitude range of $-1.5$ to $9.5$ mag. The luminosity function was well approximated by a single power-law function with the population index of $r = 3.52{\pm}0.12$. The present observation indicates that the MU radar has capability to detect interplanetary dust of $10^{-5}$ to $10^{0}$ g in mass as meteors.

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arXiv2020

Light and colour variations of Mira variables in the Small Magellanic Cloud

The goal of this paper is to characterise the light variation properties of Mira variables in the Small Magellanic Cloud. We have investigated a combined optical and near infrared multi-epoch dataset of Mira variables based on our monitoring data obtained over 15 years. Bolometric correction relations are formulated for various near-infrared colours. We find that the same bolometric correction equation holds for both the bolometricly brightest and faintest pulsation phases. Period-bolometric magnitude relations and period-colour relations were derived using time-averaged values. Phase lags between bolometric phase and optical and near-infrared phases were detected from the O-rich (the surface C/O number ratio is below unity) Mira variables, while no significant systematic lags were observed in most of the C-rich (the C/O ratio is over unity) ones. Some Miras show colour phase inversions, e.g., $H-K_{\rm s}$ at its bluest while $J-H$ and $J-K_{\rm s}$ are at their reddest values at about the bolometricly brightest phase. Their occurrence conditions were studied but no clear direct or indirect trigger was found. A large NIR colour change unassociated with stellar pulsation was observed in Miras with long secondary periods, and its possible explanation is described.

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arXiv2020

Long-Term Near-Infrared Brightening of Non-Variable OH/IR Stars

Non-variable OH/IR stars are thought to have just left the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase. In this conventional picture, they must still show strong circumstellar extinction caused by the dust ejected during the AGB phase, and the extinction is expected to decrease over time because of the dispersal of the circumstellar dust after the cessation of the stellar mass loss. The reduction of the extinction makes the stars become apparently brighter and bluer with time especially in the near-infrared (NIR) range. We look for such long-term brightening of non-variable OH/IR stars by using 2MASS, UKIDSS, and OAOWFC survey data. As a result, we get multi-epoch NIR data taken over a 20-year period (1997-2017) for 6 of 16 non-variable OH/IR stars, and all six objects are found to be brightening. The K-band brightening rate of five objects ranges from 0.010 to 0.130 mag yr$^{-1}$, which is reasonably explained with the conventional picture. However, one OH/IR star, OH31.0-0.2, shows a rapid brightening, which cannot be explained only by the dispersal of the dust shell. Multi-color (J-, H-, and K-band) data are obtained for three objects, OH25.1-0.3, OH53.6-0.2, and OH77.9+0.2. Surprisingly, none of them appears to have become bluer, and OH53.6-0.2 is found to have been reddened with a rate of 0.013 mag yr$^{-1}$ in (J-K). Our findings suggest other mechanisms such as rapid changes in stellar properties (temperature or luminosity) or a generation of a new batch of dust grains.

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arXiv2019

Long Secondary Periods in luminous red giant variables

The origin of long secondary periods (LSPs) in red giant variables is unknown. We investigate whether stellar pulsations in red giants can explain the properties of the LSP variability. VIJHKs light curves obtained by OGLE and the IRSF/SIRIUS survey in the Small Magellanic Cloud are examined. The sample of oxygen-rich LSP stars show evidence of a phase lag between the light curves of optical and near- IR band. The change in radius contributes the bolometric change roughly half as much as the change in temperature, implying that the change in effective temperature plays an important role in the luminosity change associated with the LSPs. We have created numerical models based on the spherical harmonics to calculate the light amplitudes of dipole mode variability and have found that the models can roughly reproduce the amplitude - amplitude relations (e.g. ($ΔI$, $ΔH$)). The LSP variability can be reproduced by the dipole mode oscillations with temperature amplitude of $\lesssim$ 100 K and $\lesssim$ 150 K for oxygen-rich stars and most carbon stars, respectively. Radial pulsation models are also examined and can reproduce the observed colour change of the LSPs. However, there is still an inconsistency in length between the LSP and periods of radial fundamental mode. On the other hand, theoretical PL relations of the dipole mode corresponding to so-called oscillatory convective mode were roughly consistent with observation. Hence our result suggests that the observations can be consistent with stellar pulsations corresponding to oscillatory convective modes.

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arXiv2019

An optical search for transients lasting a few seconds

Using a prototype of the Tomo-e Gozen wide-field CMOS mosaic camera, we acquire wide-field optical images at a cadence of 2 Hz and search them for transient sources of duration 1.5 to 11.5 seconds. Over the course of eight nights, our survey encompasses the equivalent of roughly two days on one square degree, to a fluence equivalent to a limiting magnitude about $V = 15.6$ in a 1-second exposure. After examining by eye the candidates identified by a software pipeline, we find no sources which meet all our criteria. We compute upper limits to the rate of optical transients consistent with our survey, and compare those to the rates expected and observed for representative sources of ephemeral optical light.

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arXiv2019

New constraint on the atmosphere of (50000) Quaoar from a stellar occultation

We report observations of a stellar occultation by the classical Kuiper belt object (50000) Quaoar occurred on 28 June 2019. A single-chord high-cadence (2 Hz) photometry dataset was obtained with the Tomo-e Gozen CMOS camera mounted on the 1.05 m Schmidt telescope at Kiso Observatory. The obtained ingress and egress data do not show any indication of atmospheric refraction and allow to set new $1σ$ and $3σ$ upper limits of 6 and 16 nbar, respectively, for the surface pressure of a pure methane atmosphere. These upper limits are lower than the saturation vapor pressure of methane at Quaoar's expected mean surface temperature ($T \sim 44$ K) and imply the absence of a $\sim$10 nbar-level global atmosphere formed by methane ice on Quaoar's surface.

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arXiv2019

The Age and Metallicity Dependence of the Near-Infrared Magnitudes of Red Clump Stars

Red clump (RC) stars are widely used as an excellent standard candle. To make them even better, it is important to know the dependence of their absolute magnitudes on age and metallicity. We observed star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud to fill age and metallicity parameter space, which previous work has not observationally studied. We obtained the empirical relations of the age and metallicity dependence of absolute magnitudes $M_{J}$, $M_{H}$, and $M_{K_{S}}$, and colours $J - H$, $J - K_{S}$, and $H - K_{S}$ of RC stars, although the coefficients have large errors. Mean near-infrared magnitudes of the RC stars in the clusters show relatively strong dependence on age for young RC stars. The $J - K_{S}$ and $H - K_{S}$ colours show the nearly constant values of $0.528 \pm 0.015$ and $0.047 \pm 0.011$, respectively, at least within the ages of 1.1--3.2 Gyr and [Fe/H] of $-0.90$ to $-0.40$ dex. We also confirmed that the population effects of observational data are in good agreement with the model prediction.

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arXiv2018

A near infrared variable star survey in the Magellanic Clouds: The Small Magellanic Cloud data

A very long term near-infrared variable star survey towards the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds was carried out using the 1.4m InfraRed Survey Facility at the South African Astronomical Observatory. This project was initiated in December 2000 in the LMC, and in July 2001 in the SMC. Since then an area of 3 square degrees along the bar in the LMC and an area of 1 square degree in the central part of the SMC have been repeatedly observed. This survey is ongoing, but results obtained with data taken until December 2017 are reported in this paper. Over more than 15 years we have observed the two survey areas more than one hundred times. This is the first survey that provides near-infrared time-series data with such a long time baseline and on such a large scale. This paper describes the observations in the SMC and publishes a point source photometric catalogue, a variable source catalogue, and time-series data.

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arXiv2018

Luminosity Function of Faint Sporadic Meteors measured with a Wide-Field CMOS mosaic camera Tomo-e PM

Imaging observations of faint meteors were carried out on April 11 and 14, 2016 with a wide-field CMOS mosaic camera, Tomo-e PM, mounted on the 105-cm Schmidt telescope at Kiso Observatory, the University of Tokyo. Tomo-e PM, which is a prototype model of Tomo-e Gozen, can monitor a sky of ${\sim}1.98\,\mathrm{deg^2}$ at 2\,Hz. The numbers of detected meteors are 1514 and 706 on April 11 and 14, respectively. The detected meteors are attributed to sporadic meteors. Their absolute magnitudes range from $+4$ to $+10\,\mathrm{mag}$ in the $V$-band, corresponding to about $8.3{\times}10^{-2}$ to $3.3{\times}10^{-4}\,\mathrm{g}$ in mass. The present magnitude distributions we obtained are well explained by a single power-law luminosity function with a slope parameter $r = 3.1{\pm}0.4$ and a meteor rate $\log_{10}N_0 = -5.5{\pm}0.5$. The results demonstrate a high performance of telescopic observations with a wide-field video camera to constrain the luminosity function of faint meteors. The performance of Tomo-e Gozen is about two times higher than that of Tomo-e PM. A survey with Tomo-e Gozen will provide a more robust measurement of the luminosity function.

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arXiv2015

Oscillatory convective modes in red giants: a possible explanation of the long secondary periods

We discuss properties of oscillatory convective modes in low-mass red giants, and compare them with observed properties of the long secondary periods (LSPs) of semi-regular red giant variables. Oscillatory convective modes are very nonadiabatic g$^{-}$ modes and they are present in luminous stars, such as red giants with $\log L/{\rm L}_\odot \ga 3$. Finite amplitudes for these modes are confined to the outermost nonadiabatic layers, where the radiative energy flux is more important than the convective energy flux. The periods of oscillatory convection modes increase with luminosity, and the growth times are comparable to the oscillation periods. The LSPs of red giants in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) are observed to lie on a distinct period-luminosity sequence called sequence D. This sequence D period-luminosity relation is roughly consistent with the predictions for dipole oscillatory convective modes in AGB models if we adopt a mixing length of 1.2 pressure scale height ($α= 1.2$). However, the effective temperature of the red-giant sequence of the LMC is consistent to models with $α=1.9$, which predict periods too short by a factor of two.

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arXiv2015

ANIR : Atacama Near-Infrared Camera for the 1.0-m miniTAO Telescope

We have developed a near-infrared camera called ANIR (Atacama Near-InfraRed camera) for the University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory 1.0m telescope (miniTAO) installed at the summit of Cerro Chajnantor (5640 m above sea level) in northern Chile. The camera provides a field of view of 5'.1 $\times$ 5'.1 with a spatial resolution of 0".298 /pixel in the wavelength range of 0.95 to 2.4 $μ$m. Taking advantage of the dry site, the camera is capable of hydrogen Paschen-$α$ (Pa$α$, $λ=$1.8751 $μ$m in air) narrow-band imaging observations, at which wavelength ground-based observations have been quite difficult due to deep atmospheric absorption mainly from water vapor. We have been successfully obtaining Pa$α$ images of Galactic objects and nearby galaxies since the first-light observation in 2009 with ANIR. The throughputs at the narrow-band filters ($N1875$, $N191$) including the atmospheric absorption show larger dispersion (~10%) than those at broad-band filters (a few %), indicating that they are affected by temporal fluctuations in Precipitable Water Vapor (PWV) above the site. We evaluate the PWV content via the atmospheric transmittance at the narrow-band filters, and derive that the median and the dispersion of the distribution of the PWV are 0.40+/-0.30 mm for $N1875$ and 0.37+/-0.21 mm for $N191$, which are remarkably smaller (49+/-38% for $N1875$ and 59+/-26% for $N191$) than radiometry measurements at the base of Cerro Chajnantor (5100 m alt.). The decrease in PWV can be explained by the altitude of the site when we assume that the vertical distribution of the water vapor is approximated at an exponential profile with scale heights within 0.3-1.9 km (previously observed values at night). We thus conclude that miniTAO/ANIR at the summit of Cerro Chajnantor indeed provides us an excellent capability for a "ground-based" Pa$α$ observation.

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arXiv2015

A Study of Mid-Infrared Sources that Dramatically Brightened

We present results of near-infrared photometric and spectroscopic observations of mid-infrared (MIR) sources that dramatically brightened. Using IRAS, AKARI, and WISE point source catalogs, we found that 4 sources (IRAS 19574+491, V2494 Cyg, IRAS 22343+7501, and V583 Cas) significantly brightened at MIR wavelengths over the 20-30 years of difference in observing times. Little is known about these sources except V2494 Cyg, which is considered a FU Orionis star. Our observation clearly resolves IRAS 22343+7501 into 4 stars (2MASS J22352345+7517076, 2MASS J22352442+7517037, [RD95] C, and 2MASS J22352497+7517113) and first JHKs photometric data for all 4 sources are obtained. Two of these stars (2MASS J22352442+7517037 and 2MASS J22352497+7517113) are known as T Tau stars. Our spectroscopic observation reveals that IRAS 19574+9441 is an M-type evolved star and V583 Cas is a carbon star. 2MASS J22352345+7517076 is probably a YSO, judging from our observation that it has featureless near-infrared (NIR) spectrum and also showed dramatic brightening in NIR (about 4 magnitudes in Ks-band). The possible reasons for dramatic brightening in MIR are discussed in this paper.

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arXiv2014

Ground-based Pa$α$ Narrow-band Imaging of Local Luminous Infrared Galaxies I: Star Formation Rates and Surface Densities

Luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) are enshrouded by a large amount of dust, produced by their active star formation, and it is difficult to measure their activity in the optical wavelength. We have carried out Pa$α$ narrow-band imaging observations of 38 nearby star-forming galaxies including 33 LIRGs listed in $IRAS$ RBGS catalog with the Atacama Near InfraRed camera (ANIR) on the University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory (TAO) 1.0 m telescope (miniTAO). Star formation rates (SFRs) estimated from the Pa$α$ fluxes, corrected for dust extinction using the Balmer Decrement Method (typically $A_V$ $\sim$ 4.3 mag), show a good correlation with those from the bolometric infrared luminosity of $IRAS$ data within a scatter of 0.27 dex. This suggests that the correction of dust extinction for Pa$α$ flux is sufficient in our sample. We measure the physical sizes and the surface density of infrared luminosities ($Σ_{L(\mathrm{IR})}$) and $SFR$ ($Σ_{SFR}$) of star-forming region for individual galaxies, and find that most of the galaxies follow a sequence of local ultra luminous or luminous infrared galaxies (U/LIRGs) on the $L(\mathrm{IR})$-$Σ_{L(\mathrm{IR})}$ and $SFR$-$Σ_{SFR}$ plane. We confirm that a transition of the sequence from normal galaxies to U/LIRGs is seen at $L(\mathrm{IR})=8\times10^{10}$ $L_{\odot}$. Also, we find that there is a large scatter in physical size, different from those of normal galaxies or ULIRGs. Considering the fact that most of U/LIRGs are merging or interacting galaxies, this scatter may be caused by strong external factors or differences of their merging stage.

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arXiv2014

Multi-band, Multi-epoch Observations of the Transiting Warm Jupiter WASP-80b

WASP-80b is a warm Jupiter transiting a bright late-K/early-M dwarf, providing a good opportunity to extend the atmospheric study of hot Jupiters toward the lower temperature regime. We report multi-band, multi-epoch transit observations of WASP-80b by using three ground-based telescopes covering from optical (g', Rc, and Ic bands) to near-infrared (NIR; J, H, and Ks bands) wavelengths. We observe 5 primary transits, each of which in 3 or 4 different bands simultaneously, obtaining 17 independent transit light curves. Combining them with results from previous works, we find that the observed transmission spectrum is largely consistent with both a solar abundance and thick cloud atmospheric models at 1.7$σ$ discrepancy level. On the other hand, we find a marginal spectral rise in optical region compared to the NIR region at 2.9$σ$ level, which possibly indicates the existence of haze in the atmosphere. We simulate theoretical transmission spectra for a solar abundance but hazy atmosphere, finding that a model with equilibrium temperature of 600 K can explain the observed data well, having a discrepancy level of 1.0$σ$. We also search for transit timing variations, but find no timing excess larger than 50 s from a linear ephemeris. In addition, we conduct 43 day long photometric monitoring of the host star in the optical bands, finding no significant variation in the stellar brightness. Combined with the fact that no spot-crossing event is observed in the five transits, our results confirm previous findings that the host star appears quiet for spot activities, despite the indications of strong chromospheric activities.

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arXiv2014

Spitzer Space Telescope spectra of post-AGB stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud ---polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at low metallicities

This paper reports variations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) features that were found in Spitzer Space Telescope spectra of carbon-rich post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The paper consists of two parts. The first part describes our Spitzer spectral observing programme of 24 stars including post-AGB candidates. The latter half of this paper presents the analysis of PAH features in 20 carbon-rich post-AGB stars in the LMC, assembled from the Spitzer archive as well as from our own programme. We found that five post-AGB stars showed a broad feature with a peak at 7.7 micron, that had not been classified before. Further, the 10--13 micron PAH spectra were classified into four classes, one of which has three broad peaks at 11.3, 12.3 and 13.3 micron rather than two distinct sharp peaks at 11.3 and 12.7 micron, as commonly found in HII regions. Our studies suggest that PAHs are gradually processed while the central stars evolve from post-AGB phase to PNe, changing their composition before PAHs are incorporated into the interstellar medium. Although some metallicity dependence of PAH spectra exists, the evolutionary state of an object is more significant than its metallicity in determining the spectral characteristics of PAHs for LMC and Galactic post-AGB stars.

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