Related papers: A search for magnetic fields in cool sdB stars
High-resolution optical spectra of thirteen blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars in the globular cluster M13 show enormous deviations in element abundances from the expected cluster metallicity. In the hotter stars (T_eff > 12000 K), helium…
High-resolution spectroscopic measurements of blue horizontal-branch stars in six metal-poor globular clusters -- M3, M13, M15, M68, M92, and NGC 288 -- reveal remarkable variations in photospheric composition and rotation velocity as a…
Hot subluminous stars of spectral type B and O are core helium-burning stars at the blue end of the horizontal branch or have evolved even beyond that stage. Strikingly, the distribution in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of He-rich vs.…
Hot subdwarf B stars (sdBs) are evolved core helium-burning stars with very thin hydrogen envelopes. In order to form an sdB, the progenitor has to lose almost all of its hydrogen envelope right at the tip of the red giant branch. In binary…
Stars with very large mass loss on the red-giant branch can undergo the helium flash while descending the white-dwarf cooling curve. Under these conditions the flash convection zone will mix the hydrogen envelope with the hot helium-…
Magnetic fields with strengths ranging from 300 to 500 kG have recently been discovered in a group of four extremely similar helium-enriched hot subdwarf (He-sdO) stars. Besides their strong magnetic fields, these He-sdO stars are…
Blue horizontal-branch stars are Population II objects which are burning helium in their core and possess a hydrogen-burning shell and radiative envelope. Because of their low rotational velocities, diffusion has been predicted to work in…
We present the first results of a survey of blue horizontal branch (BHB) stars in the Galactic bulge. 164 candidates with 15 < V < 17.5 in a field 7.5deg from the Galactic Center were observed in the blue at 2.4A FWHM resolution with the…
Helium-rich subdwarf B (He-sdB) stars represent a small group of low-mass hot stars with luminosities greater than those of conventional subdwarf B stars, and effective temperatures lower than those of subdwarf O stars. By measuring their…
We present high resolution UVES+VLT spectroscopic observations of 61 stars in the extended blue horizontal branches of the Galactic globular clusters NGC 1904 (M79), NGC 2808, NGC 6093 (M80), and NGC 7078 M15). Our data reveal for the first…
The hot subdwarf B (sdB) stars form an homogeneous group populating an extension of the horizontal branch (HB) in the ($T_{\rm eff}$--$\log g$) diagram towards temperatures up to 40,000 K. The recent discovery that many of them are…
Helium abundances and atmospheric parameters have been determined from high resolution spectra for a new sample of 46 bright hot subdwarf B (sdB) stars. The helium abundances have been measured with high accuracy. We confirm the correlation…
We used three sets of high-resolution spectra acquired with the multifiber facility FLAMES at the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory to investigate the chemical and kinematical properties of a sample of 42 horizontal…
Blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars with $T_{\rm eff}$ approximately larger than 11500 K show several observational anomalies. In globular clusters, they exhibit low rotational velocities, abundance anomalies (as compared to cluster…
Detection of magnetic fields has been reported in several sdO and sdB stars. Recent literature has cast doubts on the reliability of most of these detections. We revisit data previously published in the literature, and we present new…
Strong, stable, and organised magnetic fields are present at the surfaces of a small fraction of OBA stars. These "fossil fields" exhibit uniform characteristics in stars over a tremendous range of stellar mass, age, temperature, and…
A review is presented on the properties, origin and evolutionary links of hot subluminous stars which are generally believed to be extreme Horizontal Branch stars or closely related objects. Amongst the field stars a large fraction of sdBs…
The majority of hot subdwarf stars are low-mass core-helium-burning stars. Their atmospheres are generally helium deficient; however a minority have extremely helium-rich surfaces. An additional fraction have an intermediate surface-helium…
We derive the effective temperatures and gravities of 461 OB stars in 19 young clusters by fitting the H-gamma profile in their spectra. We use synthetic model profiles for rotating stars to develop a method to estimate the polar gravity…
The rotating magnetic B stars have oblique dipolar magnetic fields and often anomalous helium and metallic compositions. These stars develop co-rotating torus-shaped clouds by channelling winds from their magnetic poles to an anchored…