New mercury-manganese stars and candidates from LAMOST DR4

Abstract

The present work presents our efforts at identifying new mercury-manganese (HgMn/CP3) stars using spectra obtained with the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST). Suitable candidates were searched for among pre-selected early-type spectra from LAMOST DR4 using a modified version of the MKCLASS code that probes several Hg II and Mn II features. The spectra of the resulting 332 candidates were visually inspected. Using parallax data and photometry from Gaia DR2, we investigated magnitudes, distances from the Sun, and the evolutionary status of our sample stars. We also searched for variable stars using diverse photometric survey sources. We present 99 bona fide CP3 stars, 19 good CP3 star candidates, and seven candidates. Our sample consists of mostly new discoveries and contains, on average, the faintest CP3 stars known (peak distribution 9.5 < G < 13.5 mag). All stars are contained within the narrow spectral temperature-type range from B6 to B9.5, in excellent agreement with the expectations and the derived mass estimates (2.4 < M(Sun) < 4 for most objects). Our sample stars are between 100 Myr and 500 Myr old and cover the whole age range from zero-age to terminal-age main sequence. They are almost homogeneously distributed at fractional ages on the main sequence < 80%, with an apparent accumulation of objects between fractional ages of 50% to 80%. We find a significant impact of binarity on the mass and age estimates. Eight photometric variables were discovered, most of which show monoperiodic variability in agreement with rotational modulation. Together with the recently published catalogue of APOGEE CP3 stars, our work significantly increases the sample size of known Galactic CP3 stars, paving the way for future in-depth statistical studies.

20 pages, 11 figures, 7 tables, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics

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• TESS survey of rotational and pulsational variability of mercury-manganese stars
• Exploring the stellar rotation of early-type stars in the LAMOST Medium-Resolution Survey. II. Statistics
• V680 Mon -- a young mercury-manganese star in an eclipsing heartbeat system
• A Catalog of LAMOST Variable Sources Based on Time-domain Photometry of ZTF
• New eclipsing binaries with mercury-manganese stars
• The astrophysical parameters of chemically peculiar stars from automatic methods
• Exploring the Stellar Rotation of Early-type Stars in the LAMOST Medium-resolution Survey. III. Evolution
• Searching for shell stars in LAMOST DR4 by probing the Fe 42 multiplet lines
• Chemically peculiar stars on the pre-main sequence
• A case study of ACV variables discovered in the Zwicky Transient Facility survey