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The empirical relations between rotation period, chromospheric activity, and age can be used to estimate stellar age. To calibrate these relations, we present a catalog, including the masses and ages of 52,321 FGK dwarfs, 47,489 chromospheric activity index $logR^{+}_{HK}$, 6,077 rotation period $P_{rot}$ and variability amplitude $S_{ph}$, based on data from LAMOST DR7, Kepler and Gaia DR3. We find a pronounced correlation among $P_{rot}$, age, and [Fe/H] throughout the main-sequence phase for F dwarfs. However, the decrease of $logR^{+}_{HK}$ over time is not significant except for those with [Fe/H] $<$ $-$0.1. For G dwarfs, both $P_{rot}$ and $logR^{+}_{HK}$ are reliable age probes in the ranges $\sim$ 2-11 Gyr and $\sim$ 2-13 Gyr, respectively. K dwarfs exhibit a prominent decrease in $logR^{+}_{HK}$ within the age range of $\sim$ 3-13 Gyr when the relation of $P_{rot}-\tau$ is invalid. These relations are very important for promptly estimating the age of a vast number of stars, thus serving as a powerful tool in advancing the fields of exoplanet properties, stellar evolution, and Galactic-archaeology.

Based on all 2-minute cadence $TESS$ light curves from Sector 1 to 60, we provide a catalog of 8,651 solar-like oscillators, including frequency at maximum power ($\nu_{\rm max}$, with its median precision, $\sigma$=5.39\%), large frequency separation ($\Delta\nu$, $\sigma$=6.22\%), seismically derived masses, radii, and surface gravity. In this sample, we have detected 2,173 new oscillators and added 4,373 new $\Delta\nu$ measurements. Our seismic parameters are consistent with those from $Kepler$, $K2$, and previous $TESS$ data. The median fractional residual in $\nu_{\rm max}$ is $1.63\%$ with a scatter of $14.75\%$, and in $\Delta\nu$ it is $0.11\%$ with a scatter of $10.76\%$. We have detected 476 solar-like oscillators with $\nu_{\rm max}$ exceeding the $Nyquist$ frequency of $Kepler$ long-cadence data during the evolutionary phases of sub-giant and the base of the red-giant branch, which provide a valuable resource for understanding angular momentum transport.

Blue large-amplitude pulsators (BLAPs) are hot low-mass stars which show large-amplitude light variations likely due to radial oscillations driven by iron-group opacities. Period changes provide evidence of both secular contraction and expansion amongst the class. Various formation histories have been proposed, but none are completely satisfactory. \citet{Zhang2017} proposed that the merger of a helium core white dwarf with a low-mass main-sequence star (HeWD+MS) can lead to the formation of some classes of hot subdwarf. We have analyzed these HeWD+MS merger models in more detail. Between helium-shell ignition and full helium-core burning, the models pass through the volume of luminosity -- gravity-- temperature space occupied by BLAPs. Periods of expansion and contraction associated with helium-shell flashes can account for the observed rates of period change. We argue that the HeWD+MS merger model provides at least one BLAP formation channel., Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, accepted by ApJ

The Milky Way has undergone significant transformations in its early history, characterised by violent mergers and the accretion of satellite galaxies. Among these events, the infall of the satellite galaxy Gaia-Enceladus/Sausage is recognised as the last major merger event, fundamentally altering the evolution of the Milky Way and shaping its chemo-dynamical structure. However, recent observational evidence suggests that the Milky Way remains undergone notable events of star formation in the past 4 Gyr, which is thought to be triggered by the perturbations from Sagittarius dwarf galaxy (Sgr). Here we report chemical signatures of the Sgr accretion event in the past 4 Gyr, using the [Fe/H] and [O/Fe] ratios in the thin disc, which is reported for the first time. It reveals that the previously discovered V-shape structure of age-[Fe/H] relation varies across different Galactic locations and has rich substructures. Interestingly, we discover a discontinuous structure at z$_{\rm max}$ $<$ 0.3 kpc, interrupted by a recent burst of star formation from 4 Gyr to 2 Gyr ago. In this episode, we find a significant rise in oxygen abundance leading to a distinct [O/Fe] gradient, contributing to the formation of young O-rich stars. Combined with the simulated star formation history and chemical abundance of Sgr, we suggest that the Sgr is an important actor in the discontinuous chemical evolution of the Milky Way disc., Comment: 17 pages, 15 figures. Under review at Nature Communications

Using data from the Gaia Data Release 3 (Gaia DR3) and Kepler/K2, we present a catalog of 16 open clusters with ages ranging from 4 to 4000 Myr, which provides detailed information on membership, binary systems, and rotation. We assess the memberships in 5D phase space, and estimate the basic parameters of each cluster. Among the 20,160 members, there are 4,381 stars identified as binary candidates and 49 stars as blue straggler stars. The fraction of binaries vary in each cluster, and the range between 9% to 44%. We obtain the rotation periods of 5,467 members, of which 4,304 are determined in this work. To establish a benchmark for the rotation-age-color relation, we construct color-period diagrams. We find that the rotational features of binaries are similar to that of single stars, while features for binaries are more scattered in the rotation period. Moreover, the morphology of the color-period relationship is already established for Upper Scorpius at the age of 19 Myr, and some stars of varying spectral types (i.e. FG-, K-, and M-type) show different spin-down rates after the age of ~110 Myr. By incorporating the effects of stalled spin-down into our analysis, we develop an empirical rotation-age-color relation, which is valid with ages between 700 - 4000 Myr and colors corresponding to a range of 0.5 < (G_BP-G_RP)0 < 2.5 mag., Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS

Varying oxygen abundance could impact the modeling-inferred ages. This work aims to estimate the ages of dwarfs considering observed oxygen abundance. To characterize 67,503 LAMOST and 4,006 GALAH FGK-type dwarf stars, we construct a grid of stellar models which take into account oxygen abundance as an independent model input. Compared with ages determined with commonly-used $\alpha$-enhanced models, we find a difference of $\sim$9% on average when the observed oxygen abundance is considered. The age differences between the two types of models are correlated to [Fe/H] and [O/$\alpha$], and they are relatively significant on stars with [Fe/H] $\lesssim$ -0.6 dex. Generally, varying 0.2 dex in [O/$\alpha$] will alter the age estimates of metal-rich (-0.2 $<$ [Fe/H] $<$ 0.2) stars by $\sim$10%, and relatively metal-poor (-1 $<$ [Fe/H] $<$ -0.2) stars by $\sim$15%. Of the low-O stars with [Fe/H] $<$ 0.1 dex and [O/$\alpha$] $\sim$ -0.2 dex, many have fractional age differences of $\geq$ 10%, and even reach up to 27%. The fractional age difference of high-O stars with [O/$\alpha$] $\sim$ 0.4 dex reaches up to -33% to -42% at [Fe/H] $\lesssim$ -0.6 dex. We also analyze the chemical properties of these stars. We find a decreasing trend of [Fe/H] with age from 7.5-9 Gyr to 5-6.5 Gyr for the stars from the LAMOST and GALAH. The [O/Fe] of these stars increases with decreasing age from 7.5-9 Gyr to 3-4 Gyr, indicating that the younger population is more O-rich., Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS

We report a pore-scale numerical study of salt finger convection in porous media, with a focus on the influence of the porosity in the non-Darcy regime, which has received little attention in previous research. The numerical model is based on the lattice Boltzmann method with a multiple-relaxation-time scheme and employs an immersed boundary method to describe the fluid-solid interaction. The simulations are conducted in a two-dimensional, horizontally-periodic domain with an aspect ratio of 4, and the porosity is varied from 0.7 to 1, while the solute Rayleigh number ranges from 4*10^6 to 4*10^9. Our results show that, for all explored Rayleigh number, solute transport first enhances unexpectedly with decreasing porosity, and then decreases when porosity is smaller than a Rayleigh number-dependent value. On the other hand, while the flow strength decreases significantly as porosity decreases at low Rayleigh number, it varies weakly with decreasing porosity at high Rayleigh number and even increases counterintuitively for some porosities at moderate Rayleigh number. Detailed analysis of the salinity and velocity fields reveals that the fingered structures are blocked by the porous structure and can even be destroyed when their widths are larger than the pore scale, but become more ordered and coherent with the presence of porous media. This combination of opposing effects explains the complex porosity-dependencies of solute transport and flow strength. The influence of porous structure arrangement is also examined, with stronger effects observed for smaller porosity and higher Rayleigh number. These findings have important implications for passive control of mass/solute transport in engineering applications.

With the calculated guiding center radius $R_{guiding}$ and birth radius $R_{birth}$, we investigate the role of radial migration on the description of lithium evolution in the Galactic disk based on the upper envelope of the A(Li) vs. [Fe/H] diagram. Using migration distances, we find that stars in the solar neighborhood are born at different locations in the galactic disk, and cannot all be explained by models of chemical evolution in the solar neighborhood. It is found that the upper envelope of the A(Li) vs. [Fe/H] diagram varies significantly with $R_{birth}$, which explains the decrease of Li for super-metal-rich (SMR) stars because they are non-young stars born in the inner disk. The upper envelope of Li-$R_{birth}$ plane fits very well with chemical evolution models by Grisoni et al. for $R_{birth} = 7 - 12$ kpc, outside which young stars generally lack sufficient time to migrate to the solar neighborhood. For stars born in the solar neighborhood, the young open clusters and the upper envelope of field stars with age $<$ 3 Gyr fit well with theoretical prediction. We find that calculations using stars with ages less than 3 Gyr are necessary to obtain an undepleted Li upper envelope, and that stars with solar age (around 4.5 Gyr) have depleted around 0.3 dex from the original value based on the chemical evolution model of Grisoni et al., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Recently, CHIME/FRB project published its first fast radio burst (FRB) catalog (hereafter, Catalog 1), which totally contains 536 unique bursts. With the help of the latest set of FRBs in this large-size catalog, we aim to investigate the dispersion measure (DM) or redshift ($z$) distribution of the FRB population, and solution of this problem could be used to clarify the question of FRB origin. In this study, we adopted the M\&E 2018 model, to fit the observed $z$ distribution of FRBs in Catalog 1. In the M\&E 2018 model, we are mostly interested in the $\Phi(z)$ function, i.e., number of bursts per proper time per comoving volume, which is represented by the star formation rate (SFR) with a power-law index $n$. Our estimated value of $n$ is $0.0_{-0.0}^{+0.6}$ ($0.0_{-0.0}^{+2.1}$) at the 68 (95) per cent confidence level, implying that the FRB population evolves with redshift consistent with, or faster than, the SFR. Specially, the consistency of the $n$ values estimated by this study and the SFR provides a potential support for the hypothesis of FRBs originating from young magnetars., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy Reports

A star expands to become a red giant when it has fused all the hydrogen in its core into helium. If the star is in a binary system, its envelope can overflow onto its companion or be ejected into space, leaving a hot core and potentially forming a subdwarf-B star. However, most red giants that have partially transferred envelopes in this way remain cool on the surface and are almost indistinguishable from those that have not. Among $\sim$7000 helium-burning red giants observed by NASA's Kepler mission, we use asteroseismology to identify two classes of stars that must have undergone dramatic mass loss, presumably due to stripping in binary interactions. The first class comprises about 7 underluminous stars with smaller helium-burning cores than their single-star counterparts. Theoretical models show that these small cores imply the stars had much larger masses when ascending the red giant branch. The second class consists of 32 red giants with masses down to 0.5 M$_\odot$, whose implied ages would exceed the age of the universe had no mass loss occurred. The numbers are consistent with binary statistics, and our results open up new possibilities to study the evolution of post-mass-transfer binary systems., Comment: a Letter to Nature Astronomy

Mapping lithium evolution for evolved stars will provide restrictions and constraints on the fundamental stellar interior physical processes, which further shed light on our understanding of the theory of stellar structure and evolution. Based on a sample of 1,848 giants with known evolutionary phases and lithium abundances from the LAMOST-\kepler{} and LAMOST-\emph{K}2 fields, we construct mass-radius diagrams to characterize the evolutionary features of lithium. The stars at red giant branch (RGB) phase show natural depletion along with their stellar evolution, particularly, there is no obvious crowd stars with anomalously high Li abundances near the bump. Most of the low-mass stars reaching their zero-age sequence of core-helium-burning (ZAHeB) have Li abundances around $\sim1.0$\,dex, which show an increase of Li abundance by $\sim0.6$\,dex compared to the stars above the bump of RGB. This suggests the helium flash can be responsible for moderate Li production. While for super Li-rich stars, some special mechanisms should be considered during helium flash. Other scenarios, such as merger, could also be interpretations given the Li-rich stars can be found at anytime during the steady state phase of core He-burning. During the core He-burning (HeB) phase, there is no indication of obvious lithium depletion., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

The mergers of double helium white dwarfs are believed to form isolated helium-rich hot subdwarfs. Observation shows that the helium-rich hot subdwarfs can be divided into two subgroups based on whether the surface is carbon-rich or carbon-normal. But it is not clear whether this distribution directly comes from binary evolution. We adopt the binary population synthesis (BPS) to obtain the population of single helium-rich hot subdwarfs according to the channel of double helium white dwarfs merger. We find that the merger channel can represent the two subgroups in the $T_{\rm{eff}}-\log g$ plane related to different masses of progenitor helium white dwarfs. For $Z$ = 0.02, the birth rates and local density of helium-rich hot subdwarf stars by the mergers of two helium white dwarfs is $\sim 4.82 \times 10^{-3}$ $\rm yr^{-1}$ and $\sim$ 290.0 $\rm kpc^{-3}$ at 13.7 Gyr in our Galaxy, respectively. The proportion of carbon-rich and carbon-normal helium-rich hot subdwarfs are 32$\%$ and 68$\%$, respectively., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted by MNRAS, comments welcome!

Identifying the angular degrees $l$ of oscillation modes is essential for asteroseismology and depends on visual tagging before fitting power spectra in a so-called peakbagging analysis. In oscillating subgiants, radial ($l$= 0) mode frequencies distributed linearly in frequency, while non-radial ($l$ >= 1) modes are p-g mixed modes that having a complex distribution in frequency, which increased the difficulty of identifying $l$. In this study, we trained a 1D convolutional neural network to perform this task using smoothed oscillation spectra. By training simulation data and fine-tuning the pre-trained network, we achieved a 95 per cent accuracy on Kepler data., Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, accepted by MNRAS

The change of sound speed has been found at the base of the convection during the solar cycles, which can be used to constrain the solar internal magnetic field. We aim to check whether the magnetic field generated by the solar dynamo can lead to the cyclic variation of the sound speed detected through helioseismology. The basic configuration of magnetic field in the solar interior was obtained by using a Babcock-Leighton (BL) type flux transport dynamo. We reconstructed one-dimensional solar models by assimilating magnetic field generated by an established dynamo and examined their influences on the structural variables. The results show that magnetic field generated by the dynamo is able to cause noticeable change of the sound speed profile at the base of the convective zone during a solar cycle. Detailed features of this theoretical prediction are also similar to those of the helioseismic results in solar cycle 23 by adjusting the free parameters of the dynamo model., Comment: accepted for publication in RAA (Res. Astron. Astrophys.)

Orbital decay mechanisms argue that double white dwarf mergers are inevitable, but extremely rare. Whilst some mergers result in explosions, the survivors re-ignite helium and burn brightly for tens of thousands or millions of years. Candidate survivors include extreme helium stars, R CrB variables and various classes of helium-rich subluminous star. Nuclear waste on the survivors' surfaces provides evidence of the stars' nuclear history prior to and their nucleosynthesis during the merger. Extensive and deep spectroscopic surveys offer rich prospects for future discoveries., Comment: Originally presented at the conference '150 Years of the Periodic Table' held in Bengaluru, India, in 2019, December, and to appear in Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy. 11 pages, 5 figures

Lithium has confused scientists for decades at almost each scale of the universe. Lithium-rich giants are peculiar stars with lithium abundances over model prediction. A large fraction of lithium-rich low-mass evolved stars are traditionally supposed to be red giant branch (RGB) stars. Recent studies, however, report that red clump (RC) stars are more frequent than RGB. Here, we present a uniquely large systematic study combining the direct asteroseismic analysis with the spectroscopy on the lithium-rich stars. The majority of lithium-rich stars are confirmed to be RCs, whereas RGBs are minor. We reveal that the distribution of lithium-rich RGBs steeply decline with the increasing lithium abundance, showing an upper limit around 2.6 dex, whereas the Li abundances of RCs extend to much higher values. We also find that the distributions of mass and nitrogen abundance are notably different between RC and RGB stars. These findings indicate that there is still unknown process that significantly affects surface chemical composition in low-mass stellar evolution., Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables

The newly discovered 16.35 days period for repeating FRB 180916.J0158+65 provides an essential clue for understanding the sources and emission mechanism of repeating FRBs. Many models propose that the periodically repeating FRBs might be related to binary star systems that contain at least one neutron star (NSC-FRB system). It has been suggested that the NS "combed" by the strong wind from a companion star might provide a solution. Following the "Binary Comb" model, we use the population synthesis method to study in detail the properties of the companion stars and the nature of NSC-FRB systems. Our main findings are: 1) the companion star is most likely to be a B-type star; 2) the period of 16 days of FRB 180916 happens to fall in the most probable period range, which may explain why FRB 180916 was the first detected periodically repeating FRB, and we expect to observe more periodically repeating FRBs with periods around 10-30 days; 3) the birth rate for NSC-FRB system is large enough to fulfill the event rate requirement set by the observation of FRB 180916, which supports the proposal that NSC-FRB can provide one significant channel for producing periodically repeating FRBs., Comment: 8 pages,3 figures, accepted by MNRAS letter

Obtaining measurements of chromospheric and photometric activity of stars with near-solar fundamental parameters and rotation periods is important for a better understanding of solar-stellar connection. We select a sample of 2603 stars with near-solar fundamental parameters from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST)-Kepler field and use LAMOST spectra to measure their chromospheric activity and Kepler light curves to measure their photospheric activity (i.e., the amplitude of the photometric variability). While the rotation periods of 1556 of these stars could not be measured due to the low amplitude of the photometric variability and highly irregular temporal profile of light curves, 254 stars were further identified as having near-solar rotation periods. We show that stars with near-solar rotation periods have chromospheric activities that are systematically higher than stars with undetected rotation periods. Furthermore, while the solar level of photospheric and chromospheric activity appears to be typical for stars with undetected rotation periods, the Sun appears to be less active than most stars with near-solar rotation periods (both in terms of photospheric and chromospheric activity)., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures

Monitoring chromospheric and photospheric indexes of magnetic activity can provide valuable information, especially the interaction between different parts of the atmosphere and their response to magnetic fields. We extract chromospheric indexes, S and Rhk+, for 59,816 stars from LAMOST spectra in the LAMOST-Kepler program, and photospheric index, Reff, for 5575 stars from Kepler light curves. The log Reff shows positive correlation with log Rhk+. We estimate the power-law indexes between Reff and Rhk+ for F-, G-, and K-type stars, respectively. We also confirm the dependence of both chromospheric and photospheric activity on stellar rotation. Ca II H and K emissions and photospheric variations generally decrease with increasing rotation periods for stars with rotation periods exceeding a few days. The power-law indexes in exponential decay regimes show different characteristics in the two activity-rotation relations. The updated largest sample including the activity proxies and reported rotation periods provides more information to understand the magnetic activity for cool stars., Comment: 8 pages,7 figures

The formation histories of lithium-rich and carbon-rich red giants are not yet understood. It has been proposed that the merger of a helium-core white dwarf with a red giant branch star might provide a solution. We have computed an extended grid of post-merger evolution models and combined these with predictions of binary star population synthesis. The results strongly support the proposal that the merger of a helium white dwarf with a red giant branch star can provide the progenitors of both lithium-rich red clump stars and early-R carbon stars. The distribution of post-merger models in $T_{\rm eff}$, $\log g$, $\log L$, the surface abundances of lithium and carbon, and the predicted space densities agree well with the observed distributions of these parameters for Li-rich and early-R stars in the Galaxy., Comment: 14 pages, 19 figues, accepted to ApJ

We present a catalog of stellar age and mass estimates for a sample of 640\,986 red giant branch (RGB) stars of the Galactic disk from the LAMOST Galactic Spectroscopic Survey (DR4). The RGB stars are distinguished from the red clump stars utilizing period spacing derived from the spectra with a machine learning method based on kernel principal component analysis (KPCA). Cross-validation suggests our method is capable of distinguishing RC from RGB stars with only 2 per cent contamination rate for stars with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) higher than 50. The age and mass of these RGB stars are determined from their LAMOST spectra with KPCA method by taking the LAMOST - $Kepler$ giant stars having asteroseismic parameters and the LAMOST-TGAS sub-giant stars based on isochrones as training sets. Examinations suggest that the age and mass estimates of our RGB sample stars with SNR $>$ 30 have a median error of 30 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively. Stellar ages are found to exhibit positive vertical and negative radial gradients across the disk, and the age structure of the disk is strongly flared across the whole disk of $6

We present optical and ultraviolet observations of nearby type Ic supernova SN 2017ein as well as detailed analysis of its progenitor properties from both the early-time observations and the prediscovery Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images. The optical light curves started from within one day to $\sim$275 days after explosion, and optical spectra range from $\sim$2 days to $\sim$90 days after explosion. Compared to other normal SNe Ic like SN 2007gr and SN 2013ge, \mbox{SN 2017ein} seems to have more prominent C{\footnotesize II} absorption and higher expansion velocities in early phases, suggestive of relatively lower ejecta mass. The earliest photometry obtained for \mbox{SN 2017ein} show indications of shock cooling. The best-fit obtained by including a shock cooling component gives an estimate of the envelope mass as $\sim$0.02 M$_{\odot}$ and stellar radius as 8$\pm$4 R$_{\odot}$. Examining the pre-explosion images taken with the HST WFPC2, we find that the SN position coincides with a luminous and blue point-like source, with an extinction-corrected absolute magnitude of M$_V$$\sim$$-$8.2 mag and M$_I$$\sim$$-$7.7 mag.Comparisons of the observations to the theoretical models indicate that the counterpart source was either a single WR star or a binary with whose members had high initial masses, or a young compact star cluster. To further distinguish between different scenarios requires revisiting the site of the progenitor with HST after the SN fades away., Comment: 28 pages, 19 figures; accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

Stellar systems composed of single, double, triple or high-order systems are rightfully regarded as the fundamental building blocks of the Milky Way. Binary stars play an important role in formation and evolution of the Galaxy. Through comparing the radial velocity variations from multi-epoch observations, we analyze the binary fraction of dwarf stars observed with the LAMOST. Effects of different model assumptions such as orbital period distributions on the estimate of binary fractions, are investigated. The results based on log-normal distribution of orbital periods reproduce the previous complete analyses better than the power-law distribution. We find that the binary fraction increases with $T_{\rm eff}$ and decreases with [Fe/H]. We first investigate the relation between $\alpha$-elements and binary fraction in such a large sample as the LAMOST. The old stars with high [$\alpha$/Fe] dominate higher binary fraction than young stars with low [$\alpha$/Fe]. At the same mass, former forming stars possess a higher binary fraction than newly forming ones, which may be related with the evolution of the Galaxy., Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, RAA accepted

Most close double helium white dwarfs will merge within a Hubble time due to orbital decay by gravitational-wave radiation. However, a significant fraction with low mass ratios will survive for a long time as a consequence of stable mass transfer. Such stable mass transfer between two helium white dwarfs (HeWD) provides one channel for the production of AM\,CVn binary stars. In previous calculations of double HeWD progenitors, the accreting HeWD was treated as a point mass. We have computed the evolution of 16 double HeWD models in order to investigate the consequences of treating the detailed evolution of both components. We find that the boundary between binaries having stable and unstable mass transfer is slightly modified by this approach. By comparing with observed periods and mass ratios, we redetermine masses of eight known AM\,CVn stars by our double HeWDs channel, i.e. HM\,Cnc, AM CVn, V406\,Hya, J0926, J1240, GP\,Com, Gaia14aae and V396\,Hya. We propose that central spikes in the triple-peaked emission spectra of J1240, GP\,Com and V396\,Hya and the surface abundance ratios of N/C/O in GP\,Com can be explained by the stable double HeWD channel. The mass estimates derived from our calculations are used to discuss the predicted gravitational wave signal in the context of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA)., Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, published in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (RAA)

Obtaining accurate and precise masses and ages for large numbers of giant stars is of great importance for unraveling the assemblage history of the Galaxy. In this paper, we estimate masses and ages of 6940 red giant branch (RGB) stars with asteroseismic parameters deduced from \emph{Kepler} photometry and stellar atmospheric parameters derived from LAMOST spectra. The typical uncertainties of mass is a few per cent, and that of age is $\sim$\,20 per cent. The sample stars reveal two separate sequences in the age -- [$\alpha$/Fe] relation -- a high--$\alpha$ sequence with stars older than $\sim$\,8\,Gyr and a low--$\alpha$ sequence composed of stars with ages ranging from younger than 1\,Gyr to older than 11\,Gyr. We further investigate the feasibility of deducing ages and masses directly from LAMOST spectra with a machine learning method based on kernel based principal component analysis, taking a sub-sample of these RGB stars as a training data set. We demonstrate that ages thus derived achieve an accuracy of $\sim$\,24 per cent. We also explored the feasibility of estimating ages and masses based on the spectroscopically measured carbon and nitrogen abundances. The results are quite satisfactory and significantly improved compared to the previous studies., Comment: accepted by MNRAS

It is not known how single white dwarfs with masses less than 0.5Msolar -- low-mass white dwarfs -- are formed. One way in which such a white dwarf might be formed is after the merger of a helium-core white dwarf with a main-sequence star that produces a red giant branch star and fails to ignite helium. We use a stellar-evolution code to compute models of the remnants of these mergers and find a relation between the pre-merger masses and the final white dwarf mass. Combining our results with a model population, we predict that the mass distribution of single low-mass white dwarfs formed through this channel spans the range 0.37 to 0.5Msolar and peaks between 0.45 and 0.46Msolar. Helium white dwarf--main-sequence star mergers can also lead to the formation of single helium white dwarfs with masses up to 0.51Msolar. In our model the Galactic formation rate of single low-mass white dwarfs through this channel is about 8.7X10^-3yr^-1. Comparing our models with observations, we find that the majority of single low-mass white dwarfs (<0.5Msolar) are formed from helium white dwarf--main-sequence star mergers, at a rate which is about $2$ per cent of the total white dwarf formation rate., Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, MNRAS accepted, in press

It is predicted that orbital decay by gravitational-wave radiation and tidal interaction will cause some close-binary stars to merge within a Hubble time. The merger of a helium-core white dwarf with a main-sequence star can produce a red giant branch star that has a low-mass hydrogen envelope when helium is ignited and thus become a hot subdwarf. Because detailed calculations have not been made, we compute post-merger models with a stellar evolution code. We find the evolutionary paths available to merger remnants and find the pre-merger conditions that lead to the formation of hot subdwarfs. We find that some such mergers result in the formation of stars with intermediate helium-rich surfaces. These stars later develop helium-poor surfaces owing to diffusion. Combining our results with a model population and comparing to observed stars, we find that some observed intermediate helium-rich hot subdwarfs can be explained as the remnants of the mergers of helium-core white dwarfs with low-mass main-sequence stars., Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Main sequence turn-off (MSTO) stars have advantages as indicators of Galactic evolution since their ages could be robustly estimated from atmospheric parameters. Hundreds of thousands of MSTO stars have been selected from the LAMOST Galactic sur- vey to study the evolution of the Galaxy, and it is vital to derive accurate stellar parameters. In this work, we select 150 MSTO star candidates from the MSTO stars sample of Xiang that have asteroseismic parameters and determine accurate stellar parameters for these stars combing the asteroseismic parameters deduced from the Kepler photometry and atmospheric parameters deduced from the LAMOST spectra.With this sample, we examine the age deter- mination as well as the contamination rate of the MSTO stars sample. A comparison of age between this work and Xiang shows a mean difference of 0.53 Gyr (7%) and a dispersion of 2.71 Gyr (28%). The results show that 79 of the candidates are MSTO stars, while the others are contaminations from either main sequence or sub-giant stars. The contamination rate for the oldest stars is much higher than that for the younger stars. The main cause for the high contamination rate is found to be the relatively large systematic bias in the LAMOST surface gravity estimates., Comment: accepted by RAA