The double or extended main-sequence turnoffs (MSTOs) in the color-magnitude diagram (CMD) of intermediate-age massive star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud are generally interpreted as age spreads of a few hundred Myr. However, such age spreads do not exist in younger clusters (i.e., 40-300 Myr), which challenges this interpretation. The effects of rotation on the MSTOs of star clusters have been studied in previous works, but the results obtained are conflicting. Compared with previous works, we consider the effects of rotation on the MS lifetime of stars. Our calculations show that rotating models have a fainter and redder MSTO with respect to non-rotating counterparts with ages between about 0.8 and 2.2 Gyr, but have a brighter and bluer MSTO when age is larger than 2.4 Gyr. The spread of the MSTO caused by a typical rotation rate is equivalent to the effect of an age spread of about 200 Myr. Rotation could lead to the double or extended MSTOs in the CMD of the star clusters with ages between about 0.8 and 2.2 Gyr. However, the extension is not significant; and it does not even exist in younger clusters. If the efficiency of the mixing were high enough, the effects of the mixing would counteract the effect of the centrifugal support in the late stage of evolution; and the rotationally induced extension would disappear in the old intermediate-age star clusters; but younger clusters would have an extended MSTO. Moreover, the effects of rotation might aid in understanding the formation of some "multiple populations" in globular clusters.

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 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 ∼ 20 per cent. The sample stars reveal two separate sequences in the age -[α/Fe] relation -a high-α sequence with stars older than ∼ 8 Gyr and a low-α 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 ∼ 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.

Using reconstructed opacities, we construct solar models with low heavy-element abundance. Rotational mixing and enhanced diffusion of helium and heavy elements are used to reconcile the recently observed abundances with helioseismology. The sound speed and density of models where the relative and absolute diffusion coefficients for helium and heavy elements have been increased agree with seismically inferred values at better than the 0.005 and 0.02 fractional level respectively. However, the surface helium abundance of the enhanced diffusion model is too low. The low helium problem in the enhanced diffusion model can be solved to a great extent by rotational mixing. The surface helium and the convection zone depth of rotating model M04R3, which has a surface Z of 0.0154, agree with the seismic results at the levels of 1 $\sigma$ and 3 $\sigma$ respectively. M04R3 is almost as good as the standard model M98. Some discrepancies between the models constructed in accord with the new element abundances and seismic constraints can be solved individually, but it seems difficult to resolve them as a whole scenario.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

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 < R < 13 kpc. The data set demonstrates good correlations among stellar age, [Fe/H] and [α/Fe]. There are two separate sequences in the [Fe/H] -[α/Fe] plane: a high-α sequence with stars older than ∼ 8 Gyr and a low-α sequence composed of stars with ages covering the whole range of possible ages of stars. We also examine relations between age and kinematic parameters derived from the Gaia DR2 parallax and proper motions. Both the median value and dispersion of the orbital eccentricity are found to increase with age. The vertical angular momentum is found to fairly smoothly decrease with age from 2 to 12 Gyr, with a rate of about −50 kpc km s −1 Gyr −1 . A full table of the catalog is public available online.

Double or extended main-sequence turn-offs (DMSTOs) and dual red clump (RC) were observed in intermediate-age clusters, such as in NGC 1846 and 419. the DMSTOs are interpreted as that the cluster has two distinct stellar populations with differences in age of about 200-300 Myr but with the same metallicity. The dual RC is interpreted as a result of a prolonged star formation. Using a stellar population-synthesis method, we calculated the evolutions of binary-star stellar population (BSP). We found that binary interactions and merging can reproduce the dual RC in the color-magnitude diagrams of an intermediate-age cluster, whereas in actuality only a single population exists. Moreover, the binary interactions can lead to an extended MSTO rather than DMSTOs. However, the rest of main sequence, subgiant branch and first giant branch are hardly spread by the binary interactions. Part of the observed dual RC and extended MSTO may be the results of binary interactions and merger.

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.

About one percent of giants[1] are detected to have anomalously high lithium (Li) abundances in their atmospheres, conflicting directly with the prediction of the standard stellar evolution models [2] , and making the production and evolution of Li more intriguing, not only in the sense of the Big Bang nucleosynthesis [3,4] or the Galactic medium [5] , but also the evolution of stars. [6,7,8] , yet the origins of Li-rich giants are still being debated. Here we report the discovery of the most Li-rich giant known to date, with a super-high Li abundance of 4.51. This rare phenomenon was snapshotted together with another short-term event that the star is experiencing its luminosity bump on the red giant branch. Such high Li abundance indicates that the star might be at the very beginning of its Li-rich phase, which provides a great opportunity to investigate the origin and evolution of Li in the Galaxy. A detailed nuclear simulation is presented with up-to-date reaction rates to recreate the Li enriching process in this star. Our results provide tight constraints on both observational and theoretical points of view, suggesting that low-mass giants can produce Li inside themselves to a super high level via 7 Be transportation during the red giant phase. Decades of efforts have been put into explaining why such outliers existLithium is too fragile to survive in deeper layers of a stellar atmosphere due to the high temperature. Thus the first dredge up (FDU) process can sharply dilute the surface Li abundance in red giants. That explains why the first discovery [9] of a Li-rich giant evoked great interests on exploring and understanding the Li-rich objects. However, only about 150 Li-rich giants have been found [1,10,11,12,13,14] in the past three decades, and ∼ 20 of them were found to be super Li-rich with Li abundances higher than 3.3. Considering the NLTE corrections, three [12,15,16] stars were found to be at a level of A(Li) > 4.0. Such rare objects could provide a great opportunity to reveal the nature of the phenomenon of Li-richness because high Li abundance cannot be maintained for a long time due to frequent convection activity. Taking advantage of the powerful ability for spectral collection with the Large Sky Area Multi-Object * sjr@nao.cas.cn † gzhao@nao.cas.cn 1 Fiber Spectroscopy Telescope (LAMOST), we have obtained a large sample of Li-rich candidates by measuring the equivalent width of the Li I line at λ = 6707.8 Å. One of our candidates, TYC 429-2097-1, has a super strong Li absorption line (see Fig. 1, panel a). We then made a follow-up high-resolution observation with the 2.4-m Automated Planet Finder Telescope (APF) located at Lick Observatory on June 23, 2015. The spectrum covers a wavelength range of 374 nm − 970 nm with a resolution of ∼ 80, 000. The total integration time was 1.5 hours and was divided into three single exposures (30 minutes each) for a better subtraction of cosmic-rays. The spectrum of TYC 429-2097-1 obtained from APF is presented in Fig. 1, panels (b) and (e), where the spec...

No abstract