Related papers: SALT revisits DY Cen: a rapidly-evolving strontium…
DY Cen has shown a steady fading of its visual light by about 1 magnitude in the last 40 years suggesting a secular increase in its effective temperature. We have conducted non-LTE and LTE abundance analyses to determine the star's…
Over an interval of 120 years, the extraordinary object FG Sge has been transformed from a hot post-AGB star to a very luminous cool supergiant. Theoretically, this evolution has been associated with the reignition of a helium-shell during…
Hydrogen deficient stars include the cool R CrB variable (RCBs) and hydrogen-deficient carbon (HdCs) giants through extreme helium stars (EHes) to the very hot helium-rich subdwarfs (He-sdO and O(He) stars) and white dwarfs. With surfaces…
Among the distinguishing characteristics of the remarkable hot R Coronae Borealis star DY Cen, which was recently found to be a spectroscopic binary, is the presence of nebular forbidden lines in its optical spectrum. A compilation of…
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…
EC 19529-4430 was identified as a helium-rich star in the Edinburgh-Cape Survey of faint-blue objects and subsequently resolved as a metal-poor extreme helium (EHe) star in the SALT survey of chemically-peculiar hot subdwarfs. This paper…
We report the first detection of new dust formation in an SC star. The prototype of the SC stars, UY Cen, underwent a decline of 2 magnitudes in the V-band. The SC stars show pulsational variations and have 60 micron excesses indicating…
Radial velocity measurements, $BVR_C$ photometry, and high-resolution spectroscopy in the wavelength region from blue to near infrared are employed in order to clarify the evolutionary status of the carbon-enhanced metal-poor star HD112869…
We present a detailed spectroscopic analysis of the stars with helium-dominated spectra in the ESO Supernova Ia Progenitor Survey (SPY). Atmospheric parameters, masses, and abundances of trace hydrogen are determined and discussed in the…
Stars consume hydrogen in their interiors but, generally speaking, their surfaces continue to contain some 70% hydrogen (by mass) throughout their lives. Nevertheless, many types of star can be found with hydrogen-deficient surfaces, in…
We report on a high-resolution, spectroscopic stellar parameter and abundance analysis of a d' symbiotic star: the yellow component of StH\alpha190. This star has recently been discovered, and confirmed here, to be a rapidly rotating…
The eclipsing and double-lined spectroscopic binary system V453 Cygni consists of two early B-type stars, one of which is nearing the terminal age main sequence and one which is roughly halfway through its main sequence lifetime. Accurate…
The R Coronae Borealis (RCB) stars are cool supergiants that display irregular and deep dips in their light curves, caused by dust formation. There are four known hot RCB stars (DY Cen, MV Sgr, V348 Sgr, and HV 2671), with surface…
The remarkable hot R Coronae Borealis star DY Cen is revealed to be the first and only binary system to be found among the R Coronae Borealis (RCB) stars and their likely relatives, including the Extreme Helium stars and the…
As they evolve, white dwarfs undergo major changes in surface composition, a phenomenon known as spectral evolution. In particular, some stars enter the cooling sequence with helium atmospheres (type DO) but eventually develop hydrogen…
Aims. We gathered about 100 high-resolution spectra of three typical HgMn (mercury-manganese) stars, HD 11753, HD 53244, and HD 221507, to search for slowly pulsating B-like pulsations and surface inhomogeneous distribution of various…
Helium-peculiar magnetic chemically peculiar stars show variations of helium abundance across their surfaces. As a result of associated atmospheric scale height variations, the stellar surface becomes distorted, with helium-rich regions…
The helium-peculiar star a Cen exhibits line profile variations of elements such as iron, nitrogen and oxygen in addition to its well-known extreme helium variability. New high S/N, high-resolution spectra are used to perform a quantitative…
The observed lithum (Li) abundance of Galactic halo stars mainly fall within the range of 2.0--2.4 dex. This nearly constant value, known as the Spite plateau, is approximately a factor of three lower than the value predicted from cosmic…
Abundances of about 18 elements including the heavy elements Y and Zr are determined from Hubble Space Telescope Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph ultraviolet spectra of seven extreme helium stars (EHes): LSE 78, BD+10 2179, V1920 Cyg,…