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The Cosmological Advanced Survey Telescope for Optical and UV Research (CASTOR) is a planned flagship space telescope, covering the blue-optical and UV part of the spectrum. Here we introduce the CASTOR image simulator, a Python GalSim package-based script capable of generating mock CASTOR images from an input catalogue. We generate example images from the CASTOR Wide, Deep, and Ultra-Deep surveys using simulated light-cones from the Santa Cruz Semi-Analytic Model. We make predictions for the performance of these surveys by comparing galaxies that are extracted from each image using Source Extractor to the input catalogue. We find that the Wide, Deep, and Ultra-Deep surveys will be complete to ~27, 29 and 30 mag, respectively, in the UV, u, and g filters, with the UV-split and u-split filters reaching a shallower depth. With a large area of ~2200 deg$^2$, the Wide survey will detect hundreds of millions of galaxies out to z~4, mostly with $M_\ast \gtrsim 10^9 M_\odot$. The Ultra-Deep survey will probe to z~5, detecting a large fraction of $M_\ast \simeq 10^8 M_\odot$ galaxies. These powerful samples will enable precision measurements of the distribution of star formation in the cosmic web, connecting the growth of stellar mass to the assembly of dark matter halos over two thirds of the history of the Universe, and other core goals of CASTOR's legacy surveys. These image simulations and the tools developed to generate them will be a vital planning tool to estimate CASTOR's performance and iterate the telescope and survey designs prior to launch., Comment: Submitted to AJ

The Cosmological Advanced Survey Telescope for Optical and ultraviolet Research (CASTOR) is a proposed Canadian-led 1m-class space telescope that will carry out ultraviolet and blue-optical wide-field imaging, spectroscopy, and photometry. CASTOR will provide an essential bridge in the post-Hubble era, preventing a protracted UV-optical gap in space astronomy and enabling an enormous range of discovery opportunities from the solar system to the nature of the Cosmos, in conjunction with the other great wide-field observatories of the next decade (e.g., Euclid, Roman, Vera Rubin). FORECASTOR (Finding Optics Requirements and Exposure times for CASTOR) will supply a coordinated suite of mission-planning tools that will serve as the one-stop shop for proposal preparation, data reduction, and analysis for the CASTOR mission. We present the first of these tools: a pixel-based, user-friendly, extensible, multi-mission exposure time calculator (ETC) built in Python, including a modern browser-based graphical user interface that updates in real time. We then provide several illustrative examples of FORECASTOR's use that advance the design of planned legacy surveys for the CASTOR mission: a search for the most massive white dwarfs in the Magellanic Clouds; a study of the frequency of flaring activity in M stars, their distribution and impacts on habitability of exoplanets; mapping the proper motions of faint stars in the Milky Way; wide and deep galaxy surveys; and time-domain studies of active galactic nuclei., Comment: Updated references and acknowledgements to match published version. 24 pages, 16 figures, 3 tables, published in AJ

The chemical enrichment of the early Universe is a crucial element in the formation and evolution of galaxies, and Population III (PopIII) stars must play a vital role in this process. In this study, we examine metal enrichment from massive stars in the early Universe's embryonic galaxies. Using radiation hydrodynamic simulations and stellar evolution modelling, we calculated the expected metal yield from these stars. Specifically, we applied accretion rates from a previous radiation-hydrodynamic simulation to inform our stellar evolution modelling, executed with the Geneva code, across 11 selected datasets, with final stellar masses between 500 and 9000 Msol. Our results demonstrate that the first generation of Pop III stars within a mass range of 2000 to 9000 Msol result in N/O, C/O and O/H ratios compatible with the values observed in very high-z galaxies GN-z11 and CEERS 1019. The ejecta of these Pop III stars are predominantly composed of He, H, and N. Our Pop III chemical enrichment model of the halo can accurately reproduce the observed N/O and C/O ratios, and, by incorporating a hundred times more zero-metallicity interstellar material with the stellar ejecta, it accurately attains the observed O/H ratio. Thus, a sub-population of extremely massive PopIII stars, with masses surpassing approximately 2000 Msol, effectively reproduces the CNO elemental abundances observed in high-z JWST galaxies to date., Comment: Accepted in A&A, 13 pages, 4 figures

The ever-growing sample of observed supernovae enhances our capacity for comprehensive supernova population studies, providing a richer dataset for understanding the diverse characteristics of Type Ia supernovae and possibly that of their progenitors. Here, we present a data-driven analysis of observed Type Ia supernova photometric light curves collected in the Open Supernova Catalog. Where available, we add the environmental information from the host galaxy. We focus on identifying sub-classes of Type Ia supernovae without imposing the pre-defined sub-classes found in the literature to date. To do so, we employ an implicit-rank minimizing autoencoder neural network for developing low-dimensional data representations, providing a compact representation of the supernova light curve diversity. When we analyze light curves alone, we find that one of our resulting latent variables is strongly correlated with redshift, allowing us to approximately ``de-redshift'' the other latent variables describing each event. After doing so, we find that three of our latent variables account for $\sim$95\% of the variance in our sample, and provide a natural separation between 91T and 91bg thermonuclear supernovae. Of note, the 02cx subclass is not unambiguously delineated from the 91bg sample in our results, nor do either the over-luminous 91T or the under-luminous 91bg/02cx samples form a clearly distinct population from the broader sample of ``other'' SN Ia events. We identify the physical characteristics of supernova light curves which best distinguish SNe 91T from SNe 91bg \& 02cx, and discuss prospects for future refinements and applications to other classes of supernovae as well as other transients., Comment: Astrophysical Journal, accepetd

Efforts to understand the origin and growth of massive black holes observed in the early Universe have spurred a strong interest in the evolution and fate of rapidly-accreting primordial (metal-free) stars. Here, we investigate the evolution of such Population III stars under variable accretion rates, focusing on the thermal response and stellar structure, the impact of the luminosity wave encountered early in the pre-main sequence phase, and the influence of accretion on their subsequent evolution. We employ the Geneva stellar evolution code and simulate ten models with varying accretion histories, covering a final mass range from 491 M$_{\odot}$ to 6127 M$_{\odot}$. Our findings indicate that the critical accretion rate delineating the red and blue supergiant regimes during the pre-main sequence evolution is approximately $2.5\times10^{-2} $M$_{\odot}$/yr. Once core hydrogen burning commences, the value of this critical accretion rate drops to $7.0\times10^{-3}$M$_{\odot}$/yr. Moreover, we also confirm that the Kelvin-Helmholtz timescale in the outer surface layers is the more relevant timescale for determining the transition between red and blue phases. Regarding the luminosity wave, we find that it affects only the early pre-main sequence phase of evolution and does not directly influence the transition between red and blue phases, which primarily depends on the accretion rate. Finally, we demonstrate that variable accretion rates significantly impact the lifetimes, surface enrichment, final mass and time spent in the red phase. Our study provides a comprehensive understanding of the intricate evolutionary patterns of Population III stars subjected to variable accretion rates., Comment: Accepted in A&A

Numerical simulations have now shown that Population III (Pop III) stars can form in binaries and small clusters and that these stars can be in close proximity to each other. If so, they could be subject to binary interactions such as mass exchange that could profoundly alter their evolution, ionizing UV and Lyman-Werner (LW) photon emission and explosion yields, with important consequences for early cosmological reionization and chemical enrichment. Here we investigate the evolution of Pop III and extremely metal-poor binary stars with the MESA code. We find that interactions ranging from stable mass transfer to common envelope evolution can occur in these binaries for a wide range of mass ratios and initial separations. Mass transfer can nearly double UV photon yields in some of these binaries with respect to their individual stars by extending the life of the companion star, which in turn can enhance early cosmological reionization but also suppress the formation of later generations of primordial stars. Binary interactions can also have large effects on the nucleosynthetic yields of the stars by promoting or removing them into or out of mass ranges for specific SN types. We provide fits to total photon yields for the binaries in our study for use in cosmological simulations., Comment: 53 pages, 17 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ

Supermassive stars are Population III stars with masses exceeding $10^4\,M_{\odot}$ that could be the progenitors of the first supermassive black holes. Their interiors are in a regime where radiation pressure dominates the equation of state. In this work, we use the explicit gas dynamics code PPMstar to simulate the hydrogen-burning core of a $10^4\,M_{\odot}$ supermassive main-sequence star. These are the first 3D hydrodynamics simulations of core convection in supermassive stars. We perform a series of ten simulations at different heating rates and on Cartesian grids with resolutions of $768^3$, $1152^3$ and $1728^3$. We examine different properties of the convective flow, including its large-scale morphology, its velocity spectrum and its mixing properties. We conclude that the radiation pressure-dominated nature of the interior does not noticeably affect the behaviour of convection compared to the case of core convection in a massive main-sequence star where gas pressure dominates. Our simulations also offer support for the use of mixing-length theory in 1D models of supermassive stars., Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, movies at https://www.ppmstar.org/, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Supermassive stars forming at $z \sim$ 15 - 20 are one of the leading contenders for the origin of the first quasars, over 200 of which have now been discovered at $z >$ 6. These stars likely form in pristine, atomically cooled haloes immersed in strong Lyman-Werner UV backgrounds or in highly supersonic baryon streaming flows. Atomic cooling triggers catastrophic baryon collapse capable of building up stars at rates of up to $\sim$1 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$. Here we examine the evolution of supermassive stars with a much larger and finer grid of accretion rates than in previous studies with the \texttt{MESA} stellar evolution code. We find that their final masses range from 3.5 $\times$ 10$^3$ M$_{\odot}$ - 3.7 $\times$ 10$^5$ M$_{\odot}$ at accretion rates of 0.001 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ - 1 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$, respectively. We also find that supermassive star evolution diverges at accretion rates of 0.01 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ - 0.02 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$, above which they evolve as cool red hypergiants along the Hayashi track and collapse via the general relativistic instability during central hydrogen burning, and below which they evolve as hot blue supergiants and collapse at the end of their nuclear burning lifetimes after exiting the main sequence., Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, accepted by MNRAS

How quasars powered by supermassive black holes (SMBHs) formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang is still one of the outstanding problems in astrophysics 20 years after their discovery$^{1-4}$. Cosmological simulations suggest that rare cold flows converging on primordial haloes in low-shear environments could have created these quasars if they were 10$^4$ - 10$^5$ M$_{\odot}$ at birth but could not resolve their formation$^{5-8}$. Semianalytical studies of the progenitor halo of a primordial quasar found that it favours the formation of such seeds but could not verify if one actually appeared$^9$. Here we show that a halo at the rare convergence of strong, cold accretion flows creates massive BH seeds without the need for UV backgrounds, supersonic streaming motions, or even atomic cooling. Cold flows drive violent, supersonic turbulence in the halo that prevents star formation until it reaches a mass that triggers sudden, catastrophic baryon collapse that forms 31,000 and 40,000 M$_{\odot}$ stars. This simple, robust process ensures that haloes capable of forming quasars by z $>$ 6 produce massive seeds. The first quasars were thus a natural consequence of structure formation in cold dark matter cosmologies, not exotic, finely-tuned environments as previously thought$^{10-14}$., Comment: Author's version of a Letter published in Nature on July 6th, 2022

Supermassive primordial stars with masses exceeding $\sim10^5\,M_{\odot}$ that form in atomically cooled halos are the leading candidates for the origin of high-redshift quasars with $z>6$. Recent numerical simulations, however, find that multiple accretion disks can form within a halo, each of which can host a supermassive star. Tidal interactions between the disks can gravitationally torque gas onto their respective stars and alter their evolution. Later, when two satellite disks collide, the two stars can come into close proximity. This may induce additional mass exchange between them. We investigate the co-evolution of supermassive stars in atomically-cooled halos driven by gravitational interactions between their disks. We find a remarkable diversity of evolutionary outcomes. The results depend on these interactions and how the formation and collapse times of the stars in the two disks are correlated. They range from co-evolution as main sequence stars to main sequence -- black hole pairs and black hole -- black hole mergers. We examine the evolution of these secondary supermassive stars in detail and discuss the prospects for binary interactions on much smaller scales after the disks merge within their host halos., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, submitted to AAS

Identifying stars formed in pristine environments (Pop III) within the first billion years is vital to uncovering the earliest growth and chemical evolution of galaxies. Pop III galaxies, however, are typically expected to be too faint and too few in number to be detectable by forthcoming instruments without extremely long integration times and/or extreme lensing. In an environment, however, where star formation is suppressed until a halo crosses the atomic cooling limit (e.g., by a modest Lyman-Werner flux, high baryonic streaming velocities, and/or dynamical heating effects),primordial halos can form substantially more numerous and more massive stars. Some of these stars will in-turn be accreting more rapidly than they can thermally relax at any given time. Using high resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations of massive star formation in high-z halos, we find that such rapidly accreting stars produce prominent spectral features which would be detectable by {\it JWST}. The rapid accretion episodes within the halo lead to stochastic reprocessing of 0--20\% of the total stellar emission into the rest-frame optical over long timescales, a unique signature which may allow deep observations to identify such objects out to $z \sim 10-13$ using mid- and wide-band NIRCam colors alone., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, Astrophysical Journal Letters accepted

We propose a novel source of gravitational wave emission: the inspirals of compact fragments inside primordial supermassive stars (SMSs). Such systems are thought to be an essential channel in the as-yet little understood formation of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). One model suggests that high accretion rates of $0.1$-1 M$_\odot$/yr attainable in atomically-cooled primordial halos can lead to the formation of a nuclear-burning SMS. This will ultimately undergo collapse through a relativistic instability, leaving a massive BH remnant. Recent simulations suggest that supermassive stars rarely form in isolation, and that companion stars and even black holes formed may be captured/accreted and inspiral to the SMS core due to gas dynamical friction. Here, we explore the GW emission produced from such inspirals, which could probe the formation and evolution of SMS and seeds of the first supermassive black holes. We use a semi-analytic gas-dynamical friction model of the inspirals in the SMS to characterize their properties. We find such sources could potentially be observable by upcoming space-born GW-detectors at their formation redshifts with the benefit of gravitational lensing. Mergers within closely-related quasi-stars may produce a much stronger signal, though disambiguating such events from other high-z events may prove challenging., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

Primordial supermassive stars (SMSs) formed in atomic-cooling halos at z ~ 15 - 20 are leading candidates for the seeds of the first quasars. Past numerical studies of the evolution of SMSs have typically assumed constant accretion rates rather than the highly variable flows in which they form. We model the evolution of SMSs in the cosmological flows that create them using the Kepler stellar evolution and implicit hydrodynamics code. We find that they reach masses of 1 - 2 x $10^5 M_{\odot}$ before undergoing direct-collapse to black holes (DCBHs) during or at the end of their main-sequence hydrogen burning, at 1 - 1.5 Myr, regardless of halo mass, spin, or merger history. We also find that realistic, highly-variable accretion histories allow for a much greater diversity of supermassive stellar structures, including in some cases largely thermally relaxed objects, which may provide a significant source of radiative feedback. Our models indicate that the accretion histories predicted for purely atomic-cooling halos may impose a narrow spectrum of masses on the seeds of the first massive quasars, however further studies incorporating realistic feedback will be essential in order to confirm whether or not this holds true in all cases. Our results also indicate that multiple SMSs at disparate stages of evolution can form in these halos, raising the possibility of SMS binaries and supermassive X-ray binaries (SMXBs), as well as DCBH mergers which could be detected by LISA., Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, ApJ accepted

We investigate the ab-initio formation of super-massive stars in a pristine atomic cooling halo. The halo is extracted from a larger self-consistent parent simulation. The halo remains metal-free and star formation is suppressed due to a combination of dynamical heating from mergers and a mild ($J_{\rm LW} \sim 2 - 10 \ J_{21}$(z)) Lyman-Werner (LW) background. We find that more than 20 very massive stars form with stellar masses greater than 1000 M$_{\odot}$. The most massive star has a stellar mass of over 6000 M$_{\odot}$. However, accretion onto all stars declines significantly after the first $\sim$ 100 kyr of evolution as the surrounding material is accreted and the turbulent nature of the gas causes the stars to move to lower density regions. We post-process the impact of ionising radiation from the stars and find that ionising radiation is not a limiting factor when considering SMS formation and growth. Rather the birth environments are highly turbulent and a steady accretion flow is not maintained within the timescale (2 Myr) of our simulations. As the massive stars end their lives as direct collapse black holes this will seed these embryonic haloes with a population of black holes with masses between approximately 300 M$_{\odot}$ and 10,000 M$_{\odot}$. Afterwards they may sink to the centre of the haloes, eventually coalescing to form larger intermediate mass black holes whose in-situ mergers will be detectable by LISA., Comment: 13 pages. Accepted for publication in the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Supermassive stars have been proposed as the progenitors of the massive ($\sim 10^{9}\,\rm{M}_{\odot}$) quasars observed at $z\sim7$. Prospects for directly detecting supermassive stars with next-generation facilities depend critically on their intrinsic lifetimes, as well as their formation rates. We use the 1D stellar evolution code Kepler to explore the theoretical limiting case of zero-metallicity, non-rotating stars, formed monolithically with initial masses between $10\,\rm{kM}_{\odot}$ and $190\,\rm{kM}_{\odot}$. We find that stars born with masses between $\sim60\,\rm{kM}_{\odot}$ and $\sim150\,\rm{kM}_{\odot}$ collapse at the end of the main sequence, burning stably for $\sim1.5\,\rm{Myr}$. More massive stars collapse directly through the general relativistic instability after only a thermal timescale of $\sim3\,\rm{kyr}$--$4\,\rm{kyr}$. The expected difficulty in producing such massive, thermally-relaxed objects, together with recent results for currently preferred rapidly-accreting formation models, suggests that such ``truly direct'' or ``dark'' collapses may not be typical for supermassive objects in the early Universe. We close by discussing the evolution of supermassive stars in the broader context of massive primordial stellar evolution and the possibility of supermassive stellar explosions., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, MNRAS accepted

The population of Milky Way satellite galaxies is of great interest for cosmology, fundamental physics, and astrophysics. They represent the faint end of the galaxy luminosity function, are the most dark-matter dominated objects in the local Universe, and contain the oldest and most metal-poor stellar populations. Recent surveys have revealed around 60 satellites, but this could represent less than half of the total. Characterization of these systems remains a challenge due to their low luminosity. We consider the gravitational wave observatory LISA as a potential tool for studying these satellites through observations of their short-period double white dwarf populations. LISA will observe the entire sky without selection effects due to dust extinction, complementing optical surveys, and could potentially discover massive satellites hidden behind the disk of the galaxy., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures

A class of optical transients known as Luminous Red Novae (LRNe) have recently been associated with mass ejections from binary stars undergoing common-envelope evolution. We use the population synthesis code COMPAS to explore the impact of a range of assumptions about the physics of common-envelope evolution on the properties of LRNe. In particular, we investigate the influence of various models for the energetics of LRNe on the expected event rate and light curve characteristics, and compare with the existing sample. We find that the Galactic rate of LRNe is $\sim 0.2$ yr$^{-1}$, in agreement with the observed rate. In our models, the luminosity function of Galactic LRNe covers multiple decades in luminosity and is dominated by signals from stellar mergers, consistent with observational constraints from iPTF and the Galactic sample of LRNe. We discuss how observations of the brightest LRNe may provide indirect evidence for the existence of massive ($> 40$ M$_\odot$) red supergiants. Such LRNe could be markers along the evolutionary pathway leading to the formation of double compact objects. We make predictions for the population of LRNe observable in future transient surveys with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and the Zwicky Transient Facility. In all plausible circumstances, we predict a selection-limited observable population dominated by bright, long-duration events caused by common envelope ejections. We show that the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will observe $20$--$750$ LRNe per year, quickly constraining the luminosity function of LRNe and probing the physics of common-envelope events., Comment: 13 pages, 8 Figures. MNRAS Accepted

Currently, postdoctoral fellow (PDF) researchers in Canada face challenges due to the precarious nature of their employment and their overall low compensation and benefits coverage. This report presents three themes, written as statements of need, to support an inclusive and thriving PDF community. These themes are the need for better terms of employment and conditions, the need for access to grants by non-permanent research staff, and the need for a sustainable PDF hiring model that considers the outcomes for the PDFs. We make six recommendations: R1. PDFs should be hired and compensated as skilled experts in their areas, not as trainees. R2. Standard PDF hiring practices should be revised to be more inclusive of different life circumstances. - R2.1 Allow PDFs the option of part-time employment. - R2.2 Remove years-since-PhD time limits from PDF jobs. - R2.3 Financially support PDF hires for relocation and visa expenses. R3. CASCA should form a committee to advocate for and provide support to astronomy PDFs in Canada. R4. CASCA should encourage universities to create offices dedicated to their PDFs. R5. PDFs and other PhD-holding term researchers with a host institution should be able to compete for and win grants to self-fund their own research. R6. Astronomy in Canada should hire general-purpose continuing support scientist positions instead of term PDFs to fill project or mission-specific requirements. In short, we ask for prioritization of people over production of papers., Comment: State of the profession white paper submitted to the Canadian Long Range Plan 2020 decadal survey with appendices

The origin of many elements of the periodic table remains an unsolved problem. While many nucleosynthetic channels are broadly understood, significant uncertainties remain regarding certain groups of elements such as the intermediate and rapid neutron-capture processes, the p-process, or the origin of odd-Z elements in the most metal-poor stars. Canada has a long tradition of leadership in nuclear astrophysics, dating back to the work of Alastair Cameron in the 1950s. Recent faculty hires have further boosted activity in the field, including transient observation and theory, survey science on galactic nucleosynthesis, and nuclear experiments. This white paper contains a brief overview of recent activity in the community, highlighting strengths in each sub-field, and provides recommendations to improve interdisciplinary collaboration. Sustaining Canadian leadership in the next decade will require, on the observational side, access to transient and non-transient surveys like LSST, SKA, or MSE, support for target-of-opportunity observing in current and future Canadian telescopes, and participation in next-generation X-ray telescopes such as ATHENA. State-of-the-art theoretical predictions will require an ambitious succession plan for the Niagara supercomputer to support large parallel jobs. We propose a funding instrument for postdoctoral training that reflects the interdisciplinary nature of nuclear astrophysics research, and the creation of a national collaborative funding program that allows for joint projects and workshop organization., Comment: White paper submitted to the Canadian Long Range Plan 2020. Minor formatting changes relative to submitted version

Supermassive primordial stars in hot, atomically-cooling haloes at $z \sim$ 15 - 20 may have given birth to the first quasars in the universe. Most simulations of these rapidly accreting stars suggest that they are red, cool hypergiants, but more recent models indicate that some may have been bluer and hotter, with surface temperatures of 20,000 - 40,000 K. These stars have spectral features that are quite distinct from those of cooler stars and may have different detection limits in the near infrared (NIR) today. Here, we present spectra and AB magnitudes for hot, blue supermassive primordial stars calculated with the TLUSTY and CLOUDY codes. We find that photometric detections of these stars by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be limited to $z \lesssim$ 10 - 12, lower redshifts than those at which red stars can be found, because of quenching by their accretion envelopes. With moderate gravitational lensing, Euclid and the Wide-Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST) could detect blue supermassive stars out to similar redshifts in wide-field surveys., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted by MNRAS

Theoretical models of stellar evolution predict that most of the lithium inside a star is destroyed as the star becomes a red giant. However, observations reveal that about 1% of red giants are peculiarly rich in lithium, often exceeding the amount in the interstellar medium or predicted from the Big Bang. With only about 150 lithium-rich giants discovered in the past four decades, and no distinguishing properties other than lithium enhancement, the origin of lithium-rich giant stars is one of the oldest problems in stellar astrophysics. Here we report the discovery of 2,330 low-mass (1 to 3$\,M_\odot$) lithium-rich giant stars, which we argue are consistent with internal lithium production that is driven by tidal spin-up by a binary companion. Our sample reveals that most lithium-rich giants have helium-burning cores ($80^{+7}_{-6}\%$), and that the frequency of lithium-rich giants rises with increasing stellar metallicity. We find that while planet accretion may explain some lithium-rich giants, it cannot account for the majority that have helium-burning cores. We rule out most other proposed explanations as the primary mechanism for lithium-rich giants, including all stages related to single star evolution. Our analysis shows that giants remain lithium-rich for only about two million years. A prediction from this lithium depletion timescale is that most lithium-rich giants with a helium-burning core have a binary companion., Comment: ApJ accepted. Catalog of 2,330 lithium-rich giants available at https://zenodo.org/record/3515777

In this White Paper we present the potential of the enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry (eXTP) mission for studies related to Observatory Science targets. These include flaring stars, supernova remnants, accreting white dwarfs, low and high mass X-ray binaries, radio quiet and radio loud active galactic nuclei, tidal disruption events, and gamma-ray bursts. eXTP will be excellently suited to study one common aspect of these objects: their often transient nature. Developed by an international Consortium led by the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science, the eXTP mission is expected to be launched in the mid 2020s., Comment: Accepted for publication on Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. (2019)

The collapse of supermassive primordial stars in hot, atomically-cooled halos may have given birth to the first quasars at $z \sim$ 15 - 20. Recent numerical simulations of these rapidly accreting stars reveal that they are cool, red hypergiants shrouded by dense envelopes of pristine atomically-cooled gas at 6,000 - 8,000 K, with luminosities $L$ $\gtrsim$ 10$^{10}$ L$_{\odot}$. Could such luminous but cool objects be detected as the first stage of quasar formation in future near infrared (NIR) surveys? We have now calculated the spectra of supermassive primordial stars in their birth envelopes with the Cloudy code. We find that some of these stars will be visible to JWST at $z \lesssim$ 20 and that with modest gravitational lensing Euclid and WFIRST could detect them out to $z \sim$ 10 - 12. Rather than obscuring the star, its accretion envelope enhances its visibility in the NIR today by reprocessing its short-wavelength flux into photons that are just redward of the Lyman limit in the rest frame of the star., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted by ApJL

Type Ia supernovae are understood to arise from the thermonuclear explosion of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf, yet the evolutionary mechanisms leading to such events remain unknown. Many proposed channels, including the classical single-degenerate scenario, invoke a hot, luminous evolutionary phase for the progenitor, in which it is a prodigious source of photoionizing emission. Here, we examine the environment of SN 2014J for evidence of a photoionized nebula in pre- and post-explosion [O III] $\lambda5007$ \AA\ and H$\beta$ images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. From the absence of any extended emission, we exclude a stable nuclear-burning white dwarf at the location of SN 2014J in the last ~100,000 years, assuming a typical warm interstellar medium (ISM) particle density of 1 cm$^{-3}$. These limits greatly exceed existing X-ray constraints at temperatures typical of known supersoft sources. Significant extreme-UV/soft X-ray emission prior to explosion remains plausible for lower ISM densities (e.g., $n_{\rm ISM}\sim 0.1~\rm{cm}^{-3}$). In this case, however, any putative nebula would be even more extended, allowing deeper follow-up observations to resolve this ambiguity in the near future., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. Accepted by MNRAS Letters with minor revisions

In recent years, the discovery of massive quasars at z~7 has provided a striking challenge to our understanding of the origin and growth of supermassive black holes in the early Universe. Mounting observational and theoretical evidence indicates the viability of massive seeds, formed by the collapse of supermassive stars, as a progenitor model for such early, massive accreting black holes. Although considerable progress has been made in our theoretical understanding, many questions remain regarding how (and how often) such objects may form, how they live and die, and how next generation observatories may yield new insight into the origin of these primordial titans. This review focusses on our present understanding of this remarkable formation scenario, based on discussions held at the Monash Prato Centre from November 20--24, 2017, during the workshop "Titans of the Early Universe: The Origin of the First Supermassive Black Holes.", Comment: Solicited review article (accepted) for Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia. 38 pages, 15 figures, 1 table

Using a hybrid binary population synthesis approach, we modelled the formation and evolution of populations of accreting WDs for differing star formation histories. We found that the delay time distribution of SNe Ia in the single degenerate scenario is inconsistent with observations. Additionally, we found that our predicted X-ray and UV emission of populations of accreting WDs are consistent with the X-ray luminosities of early-type galaxies observed by Chandra and the HeII 4686\AA/H\beta line ratio measured in stacked SDSS spectra of passively evolving galaxies. Moreover, we found that the majority of current novae in elliptical-like galaxies have low-mass WDs, long decay times, long recurrence periods and are relatively faint. In contrast, the majority of current novae in spiral-like galaxies have massive WDs, short decay times, short recurrence periods and are relatively bright. Our predicted distribution of mass-loss timescales in an M31-like galaxy is consistent with observations for Andromeda., Comment: Poster presented at IAU Symp. 343 "Why Galaxies Care About AGB Stars", Vienna, august 2018

Supermassive stars born from pristine gas in atomically-cooled haloes are thought to be the progenitors of supermassive black holes at high redshifts. However, the way they accrete their mass is still an unsolved problem. In particular, for accretion to proceed, a large amount of angular momentum has to be extracted from the collapsing gas. Here, we investigate the constraints stellar evolution imposes on this angular momentum problem. We present an evolution model of a supermassive Population III star including simultaneously accretion and rotation. We find that, for supermassive stars to form by accretion, the accreted angular momentum has to be about 1% of the Keplerian angular momentum. This tight constraint comes from the $\Omega\Gamma$-limit, at which the combination of radiation pressure and centrifugal force cancels gravity. It implies that supermassive stars are slow rotators, with a surface velocity less than 10-20% of their first critical velocity, at which the centrifugal force alone cancels gravity. At such low velocities, the deformation of the star due to rotation is negligible.

Supermassive primordial stars forming in atomically-cooled halos at $z \sim15-20$ are currently thought to be the progenitors of the earliest quasars in the Universe. In this picture, the star evolves under accretion rates of $0.1 - 1$ $M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ until the general relativistic instability triggers its collapse to a black hole at masses of $\sim10^5$ $M_\odot$. However, the ability of the accretion flow to sustain such high rates depends crucially on the photospheric properties of the accreting star, because its ionising radiation could reduce or even halt accretion. Here we present new models of supermassive Population III protostars accreting at rates $0.001 - 10$ $M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$, computed with the GENEVA stellar evolution code including general relativistic corrections to the internal structure. We use the polytropic stability criterion to estimate the mass at which the collapse occurs, which has been shown to give a lower limit of the actual mass at collapse in recent hydrodynamic simulations. We find that at accretion rates higher than $0.001$ $M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ the stars evolve as red, cool supergiants with surface temperatures below $10^4$ K towards masses $>10^5$ $M_\odot$, and become blue and hot, with surface temperatures above $10^5$ K, only for rates $\lesssim0.001$ $M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$. Compared to previous studies, our results extend the range of masses and accretion rates at which the ionising feedback remains weak, reinforcing the case for direct collapse as the origin of the first quasars.

We present emission line templates for passively evolving ("retired") galaxies, useful for investigation of the evolution of the ISM in these galaxies, and characterization of their high-temperature source populations. The templates are based on high signal-to-noise ($>800$) co-added spectra ($3700-6800$\AA) of $\sim11500$ gas-rich Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies devoid of star-formation and active galactic nuclei. Stacked spectra are provided for the entire sample and sub-samples binned by mean stellar age. In Johansson~et al (2014), these spectra provided the first measurements of the He II 4686\AA\ line in passively-evolving galaxies, and the observed He II/H$\beta$ ratio constrained the contribution of accreting white dwarfs (the "single-degenerate" scenario) to the type Ia supernova rate. In this paper, the full range of unambiguously detected emission lines are presented. Comparison of the observed [O I] 6300\AA/H$\alpha$ ratio with photoionization models further constrains any high-temperature single-degenerate scenario for type Ia supernovae (with 1.5 $\lesssim$ T/$10^{5}K$ $\lesssim$ 10) to $\lesssim$3-6\% of the observed rate in the youngest age bin (i.e. highest SN Ia rate). Hence, for the same temperatures, in the presence of an ambient population of post-AGB stars, we exclude additional high-temperature sources with a combined ionizing luminosity of $\approx 1.35\times 10^{30} L_{\odot}/M_{\odot,*}$ for stellar populations with mean ages of 1 - 4 Gyrs. Furthermore, we investigate the extinction affecting both the stellar and nebular continuum. The latter shows about five times higher values. This contradicts isotropically distributed dust and gas that renders similar extinction values for both cases., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 16 pages, 12 figures

We measure the strength of HeII$\lambda$4686 nebular emission in passively evolving ("retired") galaxies, aiming to constrain their populations of hot accreting white dwarfs (WDs) in the context of the single degenerate (SD) scenario of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). In the SD scenario, as a WD burns hydrogen-rich material accreted from a companion star, it becomes a powerful source of ionizing UV emission. If significant populations of such sources exist in galaxies, strong emission in the recombination lines of HeII should be expected from the interstellar medium. To explore this conjecture, we select from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ~11 500 emission line galaxies with stellar ages >1 Gyr showing no signs of AGN activity and co-add their spectra in bins of stellar population age. For the first time, we detect HeII$\lambda$4686 nebular emission in retired galaxies and find it to be significantly weaker than that expected in the SD scenario, especially in the youngest age bin (1-4 Gyr) where the SN Ia rate is the highest. Instead, the strength of the observed HeII$\lambda$4686 nebular emission is consistent with post-asymptotic giant branch stars being the sole ionizing source in all age bins. These results limit populations of accreting WDs with photospheric temperatures ($T_{\rm eff}$) in the range ~(1.5-6)$\cdot 10^5$ K to the level at which they can account for no more than ~5-10% of the observed SN Ia rate. Conversely, should all WD progenitors of SN Ia go through the phase of steady nuclear burning with $T_{\rm eff}$~(1.5-6)$\cdot 10^5$ K, they do not increase their mass by more than ~0.03 $M_\odot$ in this regime., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 19 pages, 18 figures. References added, minor text updates, figures added to Appendix A