Search

Young star-forming regions in massive environments are ideal test beds to study the influence of surroundings on the evolution of disks around low-mass stars. We explore two distant young clusters, IC 1848-East and West located in the massive W5 complex. These clusters are unique due to their similar (distance, age, and extinction) yet distinct (stellar density and FUV radiation fields) physical properties. We use deep multi-band photometry in optical, near-IR, and mid-IR wavelengths complete down to the substellar limit in at least five bands. We trace the spectral energy distribution of the sources to identify the young pre-main sequence members in the region and derive their physical parameters. The disk fraction for the East and West clusters down to 0.1 M$_\odot$ was found to be $\sim$27$\pm$2% (N$_{disk}$=184, N$_{diskless}$=492) and $\sim$17$\pm$1% (N$_{disk}$=173, N$_{diskless}$=814), respectively. While no spatial variation in the disk fraction is observed, these values are lower than those in other nearby young clusters. Investigating the cause of this decrease, we find a correlation with the intense feedback from massive stars throughout the cluster area. We also identified the disk sources undergoing accretion and observed the mass accretion rates to exhibit a positive linear relationship with the stellar host mass and an inverse relationship with stellar age. Our findings suggest that the environment significantly influences the dissipation of disks in both clusters. These distant clusters, characterized by their unique attributes, can serve as templates for future studies in outer galaxy regions, offering insights into the influence of feedback mechanisms on star and planetary formation., Comment: Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). 18 pages, 11 figures, 1 table

Low-mass emission-line stars belong to various evolutionary stages, from pre-main-sequence young stars to evolved stars. In this work, we present a catalog of late-type (F0 to M9) emission-line stars from the LAMOST Data Release 6. Using the scipy package, we created a Python code that finds the emission peak at H-alpha in all late-type stellar spectra. A dataset of 38,152 late-type emission-line stars was obtained after a rigorous examination of the photometric quality flags and the signal-to-noise ratio of the spectra. Adopting well-known photometric and spectroscopic methods, we classified our sample into 438 infrared excess sources, 4,669 post-main-sequence candidates, 9,718 Fe/Ge/Ke sources, and 23,264 dMe sources. From a cross-match with known databases, we found that 29,222 sources, comprising 65 IR excess sources, 7,899 Fe/Ge/Ke stars, 17,533 dMe stars, and 3,725 PtMS candidates, are new detections. We measured the equivalent width of the major emission lines observed in the spectra of our sample of emission-line stars. Furthermore, the trend observed in the line strengths of major emission lines over the entire late-type spectral range is analyzed. We further classified the sample into 4 groups based on the presence of Hydrogen and Calcium emission lines. This work presents a large dataset of late-type emission-line stars, which can be used to study active phenomena in late-type stars., Comment: Accepted for publication in RAA, 24 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables

The UV upturn refers to the increase in UV flux at wavelengths shorter than 3000 {\AA} observed in quiescent early-type galaxies (ETGs), which still remains a puzzle. In this study, we aim to identify ETGs showing the UV upturn phenomenon within the Virgo galaxy cluster. We utilized a color-color diagram to identify all potential possible UV upturn galaxies. The Spectral Energy Distributions (SED) of these galaxies were then analyzed using the CIGALE software; we confirmed the presence of UV upturn in galaxies within the Virgo cluster. We found that the SED fitting method is the best tool to visualize and confirm the UV upturn phenomenon in ETGs. Our findings reveal that the population distributions regarding stellar mass and star formation rate properties are similar between UV upturn and red sequence galaxies. We suggest that the UV contribution originates from old stellar populations and can be modeled effectively without a burst model. Moreover, by estimating the temperature of the stellar population responsible for the UV emission, we determined it to be 13,000 K to 18,000 K. These temperature estimates support the notion that the UV upturn likely arises from the contribution of low mass evolved stellar populations (extreme horizontal branch stars). Furthermore, the Mg2 index, a metallicity indicator, in the confirmed upturn galaxies shows higher strength and follows a similar trend to previous studies. This study sheds light on the nature of UV upturn galaxies within the Virgo cluster and provides evidence that low-mass evolved stellar populations are the possible mechanisms driving the UV upturn phenomenon., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted by MNRAS

Weak-line T Tauri stars (WTTS) exhibit X-ray flares, likely resulting from magnetic reconnection that heats the stellar plasma to very high temperatures. These flares are difficult to identify through targeted observations. Here, we report the serendipitous detection of the brightest X-ray flaring state of KM Ori in the eROSITA DR1 survey. Observations from SRG/eROSITA, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and XMM-Newton are analysed to assess the X-ray properties of KM Ori, thereby establishing its flaring state at the eROSITA epoch. The long-term (1999-2020) X-ray light curve generated for the Chandra observations confirmed that eROSITA captured the source at its highest X-ray flaring state recorded to date. Multi-instrument observations support the X-ray flaring state of the source, with time-averaged X-ray luminosity ($L_{0.2-5keV}$) reaching $\sim 1.9\times10^{32}{erg~s^{-1}}$ at the eROSITA epoch, marking it the brightest and possibly the longest flare observed to date. Such intense X-ray flares have been detected only in a few WTTS. The X-ray spectral analysis unveils the presence of multiple thermal plasma components at all epochs. The notably high luminosity ($L_{0.5-8~keV}\sim10^{32}{erg~s}^{-1}$), energy ($E_{0.5-8~keV}\sim10^{37}$erg), and the elevated emission measures of the thermal components in the eROSITA epoch indicate a superflare/megaflare state of KM Ori. Additionally, the H$\alpha$ line equivalent width of $\sim$-5\AA from our optical spectral analysis, combined with the lack of infrared excess in the spectral energy distribution, were used to re-confirm the WTTS (thin disk/disk-less) classification of the source. The long-duration flare of KM Ori observed by eROSITA indicates the possibility of a slow-rise top-flat flare. The detection demonstrates the potential of eROSITA to uncover such rare, transient events, thereby providing new insights into the X-ray activity of WTTS., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. This paper has been accepted for publication in PASA

Interaction between galaxies play a pivotal role in their evolution. Ongoing star formation in spiral galaxies can be affected by these processes. We select a sample of interacting galaxies in field environments at various interaction stages and are nearly face-on and chose galaxy pairs NGC 2207/IC 2163, NGC 4017/4016 (ARP 305) and NGC 7753/7752 (ARP 86). We use the UltraViolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) onboard AstroSat to characterize the star-forming regions in the galaxy with a superior resolution of ~1.4". We identified and characterized star-forming regions in the UVIT images of the sample and correlated them with the neutral hydrogen (HI) distribution. We detected localized regions of enhancement in star formation surface density and distortions in the sample of galaxies. We found this consistent with the distribution of HI in the galaxy. These are possible evidence of past and ongoing interactions affecting the star formation properties in the galaxies. We then conducted a study to understand whether the observed enhancements hold true for a wider sample of interacting galaxies. We observe a moderate enhancement in the star formation rate (SFR) with the interaction class, with the maximum of 1.8 being in the merger class of galaxies. We studied the SFR enhancement for the main galaxies in our sample as a function of pair mass ratio and pair separation. We observe a strong anti-correlation between the SFR enhancement and pair mass ratio and no linear correlation between the enhancement and pair separation. This suggests that the enhancement in interaction-induced star formation may be more strongly influenced by the pair mass ratios, rather than the pair separation. We also infer that the pair separation can possibly act as a limiting parameter for the SFR enhancement., Comment: 11 pages, seven figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

In this study, we demonstrate the efficacy of the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) in identifying and characterizing white dwarfs (WDs) within the Milky Way Galaxy. Leveraging the UVIT point source catalogue towards SMC and crossmatching with Gaia DR3 data, we identified 43 single WDs (37 new detections), 13 new WD+main sequence (MS) candidates and 161 UV bright MS stars by analysing their Spectral Energy Distributions (SED). Using the WD evolutionary models, we determine the masses, effective temperatures, and cooling ages of these identified WDs. Masses of these WDs range from 0.2 to 1.3 M$_{\odot}$ and effective temperatures (T$_{eff}$) between 10000 K to 15000 K, with cooling ages spanning 0.1 to 2 Gyr. Notably, we detect hotter WDs compared to literature values, which is attributed to the sensitivity of UVIT. Furthermore, we report the detection of 20 new extremely low-mass (ELM) candidates from our analysis. Future spectroscopic studies of the ELM candidates will help us understand the formation scenarios of these exotic objects. Despite limitations in Gaia DR3 distance measurements for optically faint WDs, we provide a crude estimate of the WD space density within 1kpc as 1.3 $\times$ 10$^{-3}$ pc$^{-3}$, which is higher than previous estimates in the literature. Our results underscore the instrumental capabilities of UVIT and anticipate the forthcoming UV missions like INSIST for systematic WD discovery. Our methodology sets a precedent for future analyses in other UVIT fields to find more WDs and perform spectroscopic studies to verify their candidacy., Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

In a recent study, Banerjee et al. (2021) produced an atlas of all major emission lines found in a large sample of 115 Galactic field Be stars using the 2-m Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) facility located at Ladakh, India. This paper presents our further exploration of these stars to estimate the electron density in their discs. Our study using Balmer decrement values indicate that their discs are generally optically thick in nature with electron density (n_e) in their circumstellar envelopes (CEs) being in excess of 10^13 cm^-3 for around 65% of the stars. For another 19% stars, the average n_e in their discs probably range between 10^12 cm^-3 and 10^13 cm^-3. We noticed that the nature of the H{\alpha} and H\b{eta} line profiles might not influence the observed Balmer decrement values (i.e. D_34 and D_54) of the sample of stars. Interestingly, we also found that around 50% of the Be stars displaying D_34 greater than 2.7 are of earlier spectral types, i.e. within B0 -B3., Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in the Bulletin of Li\`ege Royal Society of Sciences as a Proceedings paper for the 3rd BINA Workshop held at ARIES, India during March 22-24 2023

In the context of the hierarchical model of galaxy evolution, polar ring galaxies (PRGs) are considered the intermediate phase between ongoing mergers and quiescent galaxies. This study explores the globular cluster system (GCS) and its properties in the nearest PRG, NGC4262, serving as a pilot investigation to study GCS in nearby PRGs. We utilize wide and deep field observations of the CFHT as part of the NGVS to investigate the GCS of NGC4262. We presented the first optical image of NGC4262 with an optically faint ring component. The photometric analysis of the GCS displays a distinct color bimodality. We estimate the total number of GCs for NGC4262 to be 266$\pm$16 GCs with a specific frequency of 4.2$\pm$0.8 and a specific mass of 0.23$\pm$0.01, which is relatively high compared to other galaxies of similar mass and environmental conditions. The spatial and azimuthal distributions of subpopulations reveal strong evidence of previous interactions within the host galaxy. The color distribution of GCS in NGC4262 shows a gradient of -0.05$\pm$0.01 within 5.5\arcmin, supporting the notion of past interactions and evolutionary transitions. PRG NGC4262 conforms to the overall trend of the GCS mass with respect to the halo mass. Furthermore, our investigation of the global scaling relations between GCS and host galaxy parameters provides further support for the hypothesis that PRGs are an intermediate phase connecting ongoing mergers and quiescent galaxies., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Herbig Ae/Be (HAeBe) stars are intermediate-mass pre-main sequence stars, characterized by infrared excess and emission lines. They are observed to emit X-rays, whose origin is a matter of discussion and not settled yet. X-ray emission is not expected in HAeBe stars, as they lack the sub-surface convective zone. In this study, we retrieved observations from the Chandra archive for 62 HAeBe stars, among which 44 sources (detection fraction $\sim$71%) were detected in X-rays, with 7 being new detections. We use this sample as a test bed to conduct a comparative analysis of the X-ray properties of HAeBe stars and their low-mass counterparts, T Tauri Stars (TTSs). Further, we compare the X-ray properties of HAeBe stars and TTSs with optical and IR properties to constrain the X-ray emission mechanism in HAeBe stars. We found no correlation between X-ray emission and disk properties of HAeBe stars, confirming that X-rays are not related to accretion shocks. About 56% of HAeBe stars without any known sub-arcsec companions have lower plasma temperatures (kT $\leq$ 2 keV). We observe flaring/variability in HAeBe stars with confirmed low-mass companions. These stars show plasma temperatures > 2 keV, similar to TTSs. Guided by this information we discuss the role of a T Tauri companion for X-ray emission seen in our sample of HAeBe stars. From the results obtained in this paper, we suggest that X-ray emission from HAeBe stars may not be related to accretion shocks or hidden TTS, but rather can be due to magnetically driven coronal emission., Comment: This paper is accepted for publication in MNRAS

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous complex molecules in the interstellar medium and are used as an indirect indicator of star-formation. On the other hand the ultraviolet (UV) emission from the young massive stars directly traces the star formation activity in a galaxy. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), along with the UltraViolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT), opened up a new window of opportunity to make a better understanding of the properties of the PAH molecules associated with the star-forming regions. In this study, we investigate how the resolved scale properties of PAH molecules in nearby galaxies are affected by star-formation. We analyze the PAH features observed at 3.3, 7.7, and 11.3 {\mu}m using F335M, F770W, and F1130W images obtained from JWST. Additionally, we utilize UVIT images to assess the star formation associated with these PAH emitting regions. Our study focuses on three galaxies, namely NGC 628, NGC 1365, and NGC 7496, selected based on the availability of both JWST and UVIT images. Based on the resolved scale study on the PAH bright regions using JWST and UVIT images, we found that the fraction of ionized PAH molecules is high in the star-forming regions with high {\Sigma}SFR. We observed that emission from smaller PAH molecules is more in the star-forming regions with higher {\Sigma}SFR. Our study suggests that the PAH molecules excited by the photons from SF regions with higher {\Sigma}SFR are dominantly smaller and ionized molecules. UV photons from the star-forming regions could be the reason for a higher fraction of the ionized PAHs. We suggest that the effect of high temperature in the star-forming regions and the formation of smaller PAH molecules in the star-forming regions might also be resulting in the higher fraction of emission in the F335MPAH band., Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

With the third data release of the Gaia mission $Gaia$ DR3 with its precise photometry and astrometry, it is now possible to study the behaviour of stars at a scale never seen before. In this paper, we developed new criteria to identify T-Tauri stars (TTS) candidates using UV and optical CMDs by combining the GALEX and Gaia surveys. We found 19 TTS candidates and 5 of them are newly identified TTS in the Taurus Molecular Cloud (TMC), not catalogued before as TMC members. For some of the TTS candidates, we also obtained optical spectra from several Indian telescopes. We also present the analysis of the distance and proper motion of young stars in the Taurus using data from $Gaia$ DR3. We found that the stars in Taurus show a bimodal distribution with distance, having peaks at $130.17_{-1.24}^{1.31}$ pc and $156.25_{-5.00}^{1.86}$ pc. The reason for this bimodality, we think, is due to the fact that different clouds in the TMC region are at different distances. We further show that the two populations have similar ages and proper motion distribution. Using the $Gaia$ DR3 colour-magnitude diagram, we show that the age of Taurus is consistent with 1 Myr., Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures

Environmental and secular processes play a pivotal role in the evolution of galaxies. These can be due to external processes such as interactions or internal processes due to the action of bar, bulge and spiral structures. Ongoing star formation in spiral galaxies can be affected by these processes. Studying the star formation in the galaxy can give insights into the evolution of the galaxy. The ongoing interaction between barred-spiral galaxy NGC 1512 and its satellite NGC 1510 offers an opportunity to investigate how galactic interactions and the presence of a galactic bar influence the evolution of NGC 1512. We aim to understand the recent star formation activity in the galaxy pair and thus gain insight into the evolution of NGC 1512. The UltraViolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) onboard AstroSat enables us to study the star-forming regions in the galaxy with a spatial resolution of ~85 pc in the galaxy rest frame. We identified and studied 175 star-forming regions in UVIT FUV image of NGC 1512 and correlated with the neutral hydrogen (HI) distribution. We detected localized regions of star formation enhancement and distortions in the galactic disk. This is consistent with HI distribution in the galaxy. This is evidence of past and ongoing interactions affecting the star formation properties of the galaxy. We studied the properties of the inner ring. We find that the regions of the inner ring show maximum star formation rate density (log(SFRDmean[Msolaryr-1kpc-2]) ~ -1.7) near the major axis of the bar, hinting at a possible crowding effect in these regions. The region of the bar in the galaxy is also depleted of UV emission. This absence suggests that the galactic bar played an active role in the redistribution of gas and quenching of star formation inside identified bar region. Hence, we suggest that both the secular and environmental factors might influence the evolution of NGC 1512., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophyics journal

During the visual observations of optical imaging data obtained from the DECaLS, a serendipitous discovery emerged, revealing the presence of a ringed galaxy, DES J024008.08-551047.5 (DJ0240). We performed one dimensional isophotal and two-dimensional GALFIT analysis to confirm the orthogonal nature of the ring galaxy and identify distinct components within the host galaxy. We discovered the galaxy DJ0240 as a potential PRG candidate with a ring component positioned almost perpendicular to the host galaxy. The position angles of the ring and host components have been determined to be 80 and 10 degrees, respectively, indicating that they are nearly orthogonal to each other. We observed that the ring component extends three times more than the host galaxy and shows a distinct colour separation, being bluer than the host. The estimated g - r colour values of host and ring components are 0.86+/-0.02 and 0.59+/-0.10 mag, respectively. The colour value of the ring component is similar to typical spiral galaxies. The host galaxy`s colour and the presence of a bulge and disk components indicate the possibility of the host galaxy being a lenticular type. Based on the comparison of photometric properties between the PRGs and other ring-type galaxies (RTGs), our findings reveal a subtle, yet noticeable, colour difference between the host and ring components. We observed that both host and ring components of DJ0240 align more closely with PRGs than with RTGs. Furthermore, we compared the sersic index values of the ring component (nring) of galaxy DJ0240 with a selected sample of PRGs and Hoag-type galaxies. The results showed DJ0240 had a remarkably low nring value of 0.13, supporting the galaxy`s classification as a PRG. Hence, we suggest that the ring galaxy DJ0240 is a highly promising candidate for inclusion in the family of PRGs., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&A journal

We study a sample of 119 Herbig Ae/Be stars in the Galactic anti-center direction using the spectroscopic data from Large sky Area Multi-Object fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) survey program. Emission lines of hydrogen belonging to the Balmer and Paschen series, and metallic lines of species such as FeII, OI, CaII triplet are identified. A moderate correlation is observed between the emission strengths of H$\alpha$ and FeII 5169 \r{A}, suggesting a possible common emission region for FeII lines and one of the components of H$\alpha$. We explored a technique for the extinction correction of the HAeBe stars using diffuse interstellar bands present in the spectrum. We estimated the stellar parameters such as age and mass of these HAeBe stars, which are found to be in the range 0.1 -- 10 Myr and 1.5 -- 10 $M_{\odot}$, respectively. We found that the mass accretion rate of the HAeBe stars in the Galactic anti-center direction follows the relation $\dot{M}_{acc}$ $\propto$ $M_{*}^{3.12^{+0.21}_{-0.34}}$, which is similar to the relation derived for HAeBe stars in other regions of the Galaxy. The mass accretion rate of HAeBe stars is found to have a functional form of $\dot{M}_{acc} \propto t^{-1.1 \pm 0.2}$ with age, in agreement with previous studies., Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Classical T Tauri stars are low-mass pre-main sequence stars with an active circumstellar environment. In this work we present the identification and study of 260 Classical T Tauri stars using LAMOST Data Release 6, among which 104 stars are newly identified. We distinguish Classical T Tauri stars from Giants and main-sequence dwarfs based on the log g values and the presence of H (alpha) emission line and infrared excess that arises from the circumstellar accretion disk. We estimated the mass and age of 210 stars using the Gaia color-magnitude diagram. The age is from 0.1 to 20 Myr, where 90% of the stars have age below 10 Myr and the mass ranges between 0.11 to 1.9 M(solar). From the measured H(alpha) equivalent widths, we homogeneously estimated the mass accretion rates for 172 stars, with most values ranging from 10^-7 to 10^-10 M(solar) yr^-1. The mass accretion rates are found to follow a power law distribution with the mass of the star, having a relation of the form Macc proportional to M(star)^1.43 +/- 0.26, in agreement with previous studies., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. Paper has been accepted in Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy

This study presents the largest mid-infrared spectral catalog of Herbig Ae/Be stars to date, containing the Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph spectra of 126 stars. Based on the catalog analysis, two prominent infrared vibrational modes of C\textsubscript{60} bands at 17.4 $\mu m$ and 18.9 $\mu m$ are detected in the spectra of nine sources, while 7.0 $\mu m$ feature is identified in the spectra of HD 319896. The spectral index analysis and the comparison of the known sources with C\textsubscript{60} features indicated that there exist two different types of emission classes among the sample of stars. The infrared spectra of six Herbig Ae/Be stars in this study resemble that of reflection nebulae, and their association with previously known reflection nebulae is confirmed. In the case of three Herbig Ae/Be stars we report the tentative evidence of C\textsubscript{60} emission features originating from the circumstellar disk or nearby diffused emission region. The detection fraction of C\textsubscript{60} in the total HAeBe star sample is $\sim$ 7\%, whereas the detection fraction is 30\% for HAeBe stars associated with nebulosity. In the catalog, C\textsubscript{60} is exclusively present in the circumstellar regions of B type Herbig Ae/Be stars, with no evidence of its presence detected in stars with later spectral types. The present study has increased the number of young stellar objects and reflection nebulae detected with C\textsubscript{60} multifold, which can help in understanding the excitation and formation pathway of the species., Comment: 14 pages,2 tables, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Gaia DR3 and further releases have the potential to identify and categorise new emission-line stars in the Galaxy. We perform a comprehensive validation of astrophysical parameters from Gaia DR3 with the spectroscopically estimated emission-line star parameters from LAMOST OBA emission catalogue. We compare different astrophysical parameters provided by Gaia DR3 with those estimated using LAMOST spectra. By using a larger sample of emission-line stars, we perform a global polynomial and piece-wise linear fit to update the empirical relation to convert Gaia DR3 pseudo-equivalent width to observed equivalent width, after removing the weak emitters from the analysis. We find that the emission-line source classifications given by DR3 is in reasonable agreement with the classification from LAMOST OBA emission catalogue. The astrophysical parameters estimated by esphs module from Gaia DR3 provides a better estimate when compared to gspphot and gspspec. A second-degree polynomial relation is provided along with piece-wise linear fit parameters for the equivalent width conversion. We notice that the LAMOST stars with weak H{\alpha} emission are not identified to be in emission from BP/RP spectra. This suggests that emission-line sources identified by Gaia DR3 is incomplete. In addition, Gaia DR3 provides valuable information about the binary and variable nature of a sample of emission-line stars., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures and 1 table. Accepted for publication in A&A

Secular and environmental effects play a significant role in regulating the star formation rate and hence the evolution of the galaxies. Since UV flux is a direct tracer of the star formation in galaxies, the UltraViolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) onboard ASTROSAT enables us to characterize the star forming regions in a galaxy with its remarkable spatial resolution. In this study, we focus on the secular evolution of NGC 628, a spiral galaxy in the local universe. We exploit the resolution of UVIT to resolve up to $\sim$ 63 pc in NGC 628 for identification and characterization of the star forming regions. We identify 300 star forming regions in the UVIT FUV image of NGC 628 using ProFound and the identified regions are characterized using Starburst99 models. The age and mass distribution of the star forming regions across the galaxy supports the inside-out growth of the disk. We find that there is no significant difference in the star formation properties between the two arms of NGC 628. We also quantify the azimuthal offset of the star forming regions of different ages. Since we do not find an age gradient, we suggest that the spiral density waves might not be the possible formation scenario of the spiral arms of NGC 628. The headlight cloud present in the disk of the galaxy is found to be having the highest star formation rate density ($0.23 M_{\odot} yr^{-1} kpc^{-2}$) compared to other star forming regions on spiral arms and the rest of the galaxy., Comment: 11 pages, 11 Figures, Accepted in MNRAS

We present a follow-up study on the recent detection of two X-ray flaring events by MAXI/GSC observations in soft and hard X-rays from MAXI J0709-159 in the direction of HD 54786 (LY CMa), on 2022 January 25. The X-ray luminosity during the flare was around 10^(37) erg/s (MAXI), which got reduced to 10^(32) erg/s (NuSTAR) after the flare. We took low-resolution spectra of HD 54786 from HCT and VBT facilities in India, on 2022 February 1 and 2. In addition to H-alpha emission, we found emission lines of He I in the optical spectrum of this star. By comparing our spectrum of the object with those from literature we found that He I lines show variability. Using photometric study we estimate that the star is having effective temperature of 20000 K. Although HD 54786 is reported as a supergiant in previous studies, our analysis favours it to be evolving off the main sequence in the Color-Magnitude Diagram. We could not detect any infrared excess, ruling out the possibility of IR emission from a dusty circumstellar disc. Our present study suggests that HD 54786 is a Be/X-ray binary system with a compact object companion, possibly a neutron star., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJL

The eastern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is found to have a foreground stellar sub-structure, which is identified as a distance bimodality (12 kpc apart) in the previous studies using Red Clump (RC) stars. Interestingly, studies of Red giant branch (RGB) stars in the eastern SMC indicate a bimodal radial velocity (RV) distribution. In this study, we investigate the connection between these two bimodal distributions to better understand the nature and origin of the foreground stellar sub-structure in the eastern SMC. We use the Gaia EDR3 astrometric data and archival RV data of RGB stars for this study. We found a bimodal RV distribution of RGB stars (separated by 35 - 45 km/s) in the eastern and south-western (SW) outer regions. The observed proper motion values of the lower and higher RV RGB components in the eastern regions are similar to those of the foreground and main-body RC stars respectively. This suggests that the two RGB populations in the eastern region are separated by a similar distance as those of the RC stars, and the RGB stars in the lower RV component are part of the foreground sub-structure. Based on the differences in the distance and RV of the two components, we estimated an approximate time of formation of this sub-structure as 307+/-65 Myr ago. This is comparable with the values predicted by simulations for the recent epoch of tidal interaction between the Magellanic Clouds. Comparison of the observed properties of RGB stars, in the outer SW region, with N-body simulations shows that the higher RV component in the SW region is at a farther distance than the main body, indicating the presence of a stellar Counter-Bridge in the SW region of the SMC., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 11 pages, 6 figures

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~\AA. 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., Comment: 16 Pages, 7 Figures, Accepted for publication in RAA

Pre-main sequence (PMS) stars evolve into main sequence (MS) phase over a period of time. Interestingly, we found a scarcity of studies in existing literature that examines and attempts to better understand the stars in PMS to MS transition phase. The purpose of the present study is to detect such rare stars, which we named as 'Transition Phase' (TP) candidates - stars evolving from the PMS to the MS phase. We identified 98 TP candidates using photometric analysis of a sample of 2167 classical Be (CBe) and 225 Herbig Ae/Be (HAeBe) stars. This identification is done by analyzing the near- and mid-infrared excess and their location in the optical color-magnitude diagram. The age and mass of 58 of these TP candidates are determined to be between 0.1-5 Myr and 2-10.5 M$_\odot$, respectively. The TP candidates are found to possess rotational velocity and color excess values in between CBe and HAeBe stars, which is reconfirmed by generating a set of synthetic samples using the machine learning approach., Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We study the formation and the kinematic evolution of the early type Herbig Be star IL Cep and its environment. The young star is a member of the Cep OB3 association, at a distance of 798$\pm$9 pc, and has a "cavity" associated with it. We found that the B0V star HD 216658, which is astrometrically associated with IL Cep, is at the center of the cavity. From the evaluation of various pressure components created by HD 216658, it is established that the star is capable of creating the cavity. We identified 79 co-moving stars of IL Cep at 2 pc radius from the analysis of {\textit Gaia} EDR3 astrometry. The transverse velocity analysis of the co-moving stars shows that they belong to two different populations associated with IL Cep and HD 216658, respectively. Further analysis confirms that all the stars in the IL Cep population are mostly coeval ($\sim$ 0.1 Myr). Infrared photometry revealed that there are 26 Class II objects among the co-moving stars. The stars without circumstellar disk (Class III) are 65\% of all the co-moving stars. There are 9 intense H$\alpha$ emission candidates identified among the co-moving stars using IPHAS H$\alpha$ narrow-band photometry. The dendrogram analysis on the Hydrogen column density map identified 11 molecular clump structures on the expanding cavity around IL Cep, making it an active star-forming region. The formation of the IL Cep stellar group due to the "rocket effect" by HD 216658 is discussed., Comment: 16 pages,5 tables, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We report the first systematic study to identify and characterize a sample of classical Ae stars in the Galaxy. The spectra of these stars were retrieved from the A-star catalog using the Large sky Area Multi-Object fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) survey. We identified the emission-line stars in this catalog from which 159 are confirmed as classical Ae stars. This increases the sample of known classical Ae stars by about nine times from the previously identified 21 stars. The evolutionary phase of classical Ae stars in this study is confirmed from the relatively small mid- and far-infrared excess and from their location in the optical color-magnitude diagram. We estimated the spectral type using MILES spectral templates and identified Classical Ae stars beyond A3, for the first time. The prominent emission lines in the spectra within the wavelength range 3700 -- 9000 {\AA} are identified and compared with the features present in classical Be stars. The H{\alpha} emission strength of the stars in our sample show a steady decrease from late-B type to Ae stars, suggesting that the disc size may be dependent on the spectral type. Interestingly, we noticed emission lines of Fe{\sc ii}, O{\sc i} and Paschen series in the spectrum of some classical Ae stars. These lines are supposed to fade out by late B-type and should not be present in Ae stars. Further studies, including spectra with better resolution, is needed to correlate these results with the rotation rates of classical Ae stars., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The intermediate mass Herbig Ae star V1787 Ori is a member of the L1641 star-forming region in the Orion A molecular cloud. We report the detection of an M-type companion to V1787 Ori at a projected separation of 6.66" (corresponding to 2577 au), from the analysis of VLT/NACO adaptive optics $K_s$-band image. Using astrometric data from Gaia DR2, we show that V1787 Ori A and B share similar distance ($d$ $\sim$ 387 pc) and proper motion, indicating that they are physically associated. We estimate the spectral type of V1787 Ori B to be M5 $\pm$ 2 from color--spectral type calibration tables and template matching using SpeX spectral library. By fitting PARSEC models in the Pan-STARRS color-magnitude diagram, we find that V1787 Ori B has an age of 8.1$^{+1.7}_{-1.5}$ Myr and a mass of 0.39$^{+0.02}_{-0.05}$ $M_\odot$. We show that V1787 Ori is a pre-main sequence wide binary system with a mass ratio of 0.23. Such a low mass ratio system is rarely identified in Herbig Ae/Be binary systems. We conclude this work with a discussion on possible mechanisms for the formation of V1787 Ori wide binary system., Comment: 10 pages,3 tables, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Most (~82%) of the over 4000 confirmed exoplanets known today orbit very close to their host stars, within 0.5 au. Planets at such small orbital distances can result in significant interactions with their host stars, which can induce increased activity levels in them. In this work, we have searched for statistical evidence for Star-Planet Interactions (SPI) in the ultraviolet (UV) using the largest sample of 1355 GALEX detected host stars with confirmed exoplanets and making use of the improved host star parameters from Gaia DR2. From our analysis, we do not find any significant correlation between the UV activity of the host stars and their planetary properties. We further compared the UV properties of planet host stars to that of chromospherically active stars from the RAVE survey. Our results indicate that the enhancement in chromospheric activity of host stars due to star-planet interactions may not be significant enough to reflect in their near and far UV broad band flux., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal

We analyze the membership probability of young stars belonging to nearby moving groups with $\textit{Gaia}$ DR2 data. The sample of 1429 stars were identified from 'The Catalog of Suspected Nearby Young Moving Group Stars'. Good-quality parallax and proper motion values were retrieved for 890 stars from $\textit{Gaia}$ DR2 database. The analysis for membership probability is performed in the framework of LACEwING algorithm. From the analysis it is confirmed that 279 stars do not belong to any of the known moving groups. We estimated the $\textit{ U, V, W}$ space velocity values for 250 moving group members, which were found to be more accurate than previous values listed in the literature. The velocity ellipses of all the moving groups are well constrained within the "good box", a widely used criterion to identify moving group members. The age of moving group members are uniformly estimated from the analysis of $\textit{Gaia}$ Color-Magnitude Diagram with MIST isochrones. We found a spread in the age distribution of stars belonging to some moving groups, which needs to be understood from further studies., Comment: 14 Pages, 5 Figures, 4 Tables, Accepted for publication in AJ

Critical task and cognition-based environments, such as in military and defense operations, aviation user-technology interaction evaluation on UI, understanding intuitiveness of a hardware model or software toolkit, etc. require an assessment of how much a particular task is generating mental workload on a user. This is necessary for understanding how those tasks, operations, and activities can be improvised and made better suited for the users so that they reduce the mental workload on the individual and the operators can use them with ease and less difficulty. However, a particular task can be gauged by a user as simple while for others it may be difficult. Understanding the complexity of a particular task can only be done on user level and we propose to do this by understanding the mental workload (MWL) generated on an operator while performing a task which requires processing a lot of information to get the task done. In this work, we have proposed an experimental setup which replicates modern day workload on doing regular day job tasks. We propose an approach to automatically evaluate the task complexity perceived by an individual by using electroencephalogram (EEG) data of a user during operation. Few crucial steps that are addressed in this work include extraction and optimization of different features and selection of relevant features for dimensionality reduction and using supervised machine learning techniques. In addition to this, performance results of the classifiers are compared using all features and also using only the selected features. From the results, it can be inferred that machine learning algorithms perform better as compared to traditional approaches for mental workload estimation., Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables

Narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) are believed to be powered by accretion of matter onto low mass black holes (BHs) in spiral host galaxies with BH masses M_BH of 10^6 - 10^8 M_sun . However, the broad band spectral energy distribution of the gamma-ray emitting NLS1s are found to be similar to flat spectrum radio quasars. This challenges our current notion of NLS1s having low M_BH . To resolve this tension of low M_BH values in NLS1s, we fitted the observed optical spectrum of a sample of radio-loud NLS1s (RL-NLS1s), radio-quiet NLS1s (RQ-NLS1s) and radio-quiet broad line Seyfert 1 galaxies (RQ-BLS1s) of about 500 each with the standard Shakura-Sunyaev accretion disk (AD) model. For RL-NLS1s we found a mean log(M_ADBH/M_sun) of 7.98 +/- 0.54. For RQ-NLS1s and RQ-BLS1s we found mean log(M_ADBH/M_sun) of 8.00 +/- 0.43 and 7.90 +/- 0.57, respectively. While the derived M_BH values of RQ-BLS1s are similar to their virial masses, for NLS1s the derived M_ADBH values are about an order of magnitude larger than their virial estimates. Our analysis thus indicates that NLS1s have M_BH similar to RQ-BLS1s and their available virial M_BH values are underestimated influenced by their observed relatively small emission line widths. Considering Eddington ratio as an estimation of the accretion rate and using M_ADBH, we found the mean accretion rate of our RQ-NLS1s, RL-NLS1s and RQ-BLS1s as 0.06 (+0.16, -0.05), 0.05 (+0.18, -0.04) and 0.05 (+0.15, -0.04) respectively. Our results therefore suggest that NLS1s have BH masses and accretion rates similar to BLS1s., Comment: 8 pages, 3 Figures, 2 Tables; Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters

The present study makes use of the unprecedented capability of the Gaia mission to obtain the stellar parameters such as distance, age, and mass of HAeBe stars. The accuracy of Gaia DR2 astrometry is demonstrated from the comparison of the Gaia DR2 distances of 131 HAeBe stars with the previously estimated values from the literature. This is one of the initial studies to estimate the age and mass of a confirmed sample of HAeBe stars using both the photometry and distance from the Gaia mission. Mass accretion rates are calculated from $H\alpha$ line flux measurements of 106 HAeBe stars. Since we used distances and the stellar masses derived from the Gaia DR2 data in the calculation of mass accretion rate, our estimates are more accurate than previous studies. The mass accretion rate is found to decay exponentially with age, from which we estimated a disk dissipation timescale of $1.9\pm 0.1$ Myr. Mass accretion rate and stellar mass exhibits a power law relation of the form, $\dot{M}_{acc}$ $\propto$ $M_{*}^{2.8\pm0.2}$. From the distinct distribution in the values of the infrared spectral index, $n_{2-4.6}$, we suggest the possibility of difference in the disk structure between Herbig Be and Herbig Ae stars., Comment: 14 pages, 1 table, 6 figures, accepted for publication in AJ