RAMSES II: RAMan Search for Extragalactic Symbiotic Stars Project Concept, Commissioning, and Early Results from the Science Verification Phase

Autor: Cristian Moreno, N. E. Nuñez, G. J. M. Luna, Emmanuel Chirre, Jeong-Eun Heo, Piera Soto King, Jennifer L. Sokoloski, Rodolfo Angeloni, German Gimeno, Hee-Won Lee, Adrian B. Lucy, Ruben Diaz, Stephen J. Goodsell, Mateus Dias Ribeiro, Marcelo Jaque Arancibia, Julia Scharwächter, Bo-Eun Choi, Denise R. Gonçalves, Stavros Akras
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Gemini Observatory
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Milky Way
media_common.quotation_subject
Population
FOS: Physical sciences
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Compact star
01 natural sciences
0103 physical sciences
Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
education
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
media_common
Physics
education.field_of_study
Astronomy
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Giant star
Universe
Galaxy
Stars
Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science
High Energy Physics::Experiment
Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Zdroj: Astronomical journal, 2019, Vol.157(4), pp.156 [Peer Reviewed Journal]
ISSN: 1538-3881
DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ab0cf7
Popis: Symbiotic stars (SySts) are long-period interacting binaries composed of a hot compact star, an evolved giant star, and a tangled network of gas and dust nebulae. They represent unique laboratories for studying a variety of important astrophysical problems, and have also been proposed as possible progenitors of SNIa. Presently, we know 257 SySts in the Milky Way and 69 in external galaxies. However, these numbers are still in striking contrast with the predicted population of SySts in our Galaxy. Because of other astrophysical sources that mimic SySt colors, no photometric diagnostic tool has so far demonstrated the power to unambiguously identify a SySt, thus making the recourse to costly spectroscopic follow-up still inescapable. In this paper we present the concept, commissioning, and science verification phases, as well as the first scientific results, of RAMSES II - a Gemini Observatory Instrument Upgrade Project that has provided each GMOS instrument at both Gemini telescopes with a set of narrow-band filters centered on the Raman OVI 6830 A band. Continuum-subtracted images using these new filters clearly revealed known SySts with a range of Raman OVI line strengths, even in crowded fields. RAMSES II observations also produced the first detection of Raman OVI emission from the SySt LMC 1 and confirmed Hen 3-1768 as a new SySt - the first photometric confirmation of a SySt. Via Raman OVI narrow-band imaging, RAMSES II provides the astronomical community with the first purely photometric tool for hunting SySts in the local Universe.
23 pages, 16 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in AJ
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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