ALBERT

Description: We present the galaxy group catalogue for the recently completed 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS; Macri et al. 2019) which consists of 44 572 redshifts, including 1041 new measurements for galaxies mostly located within the Zone of Avoidance. The galaxy group catalogue is generated by using a novel, graph-theory based, modified version of the friends-of-friends algorithm. Several graph-theory examples are presented throughout this paper, including a new method for identifying substructures within groups. The results and graph-theory methods have been thoroughly interrogated against previous 2MRS group catalogues and a Theoretical Astrophysical Observatory (TAO) mock by making use of cutting-edge visualization techniques including immersive facilities, a digital planetarium, and virtual reality. This has resulted in a stable and robust catalogue with on-sky positions and line-of-sight distances within 0.5 and 2 Mpc, respectively, and has recovered all major groups and clusters. The final catalogue consists of 3022 groups, resulting in the most complete ‘whole-sky’ galaxy group catalogue to date. We determine the 3D positions of these groups, as well as their luminosity and comoving distances, observed and corrected number of members, richness metric, velocity dispersion, and estimates of R200 and M200. We present three additional data products, i.e. the 2MRS galaxies found in groups, a catalogue of subgroups, and a catalogue of 687 new group candidates with no counterparts in previous 2MRS-based analyses.

Description: The structure and properties of the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) on small scales, sub-au to 1 pc, are poorly understood. We compare interstellar absorption lines, observed towards a selection of O- and B-type stars at two or more epochs, to search for variations over time caused by the transverse motion of each star combined with changes in the structure in the foreground ISM. Two sets of data were used: 83 VLT/UVES spectra with approximately 6 yr between epochs and 21 McDonald observatory 2.7-m telescope echelle spectra with 6–20 yr between epochs, over a range of scales from ~0–360 au. The interstellar absorption lines observed at the two epochs were subtracted and searched for any residuals due to changes in the foreground ISM. Of the 104 sightlines investigated with typically five or more components in Na i D, possible temporal variation was identified in five UVES spectra (six components), in Ca ii , Ca i and/or Na i absorption lines. The variations detected range from 7 per cent to a factor of 3.6 in column density. No variation was found in any other interstellar species. Most sightlines show no variation, with 3 upper limits to changes of the order 0.1–0.3 dex in Ca ii and Na i . These variations observed imply that fine-scale structure is present in the ISM, but at the resolution available in this study, is not very common at visible wavelengths. A determination of the electron densities and lower limits to the total number density of a sample of the sightlines implies that there is no striking difference between these parameters in sightlines with, and sightlines without, varying components.

Description: High-resolution spectral profiles of Na i D lines from the interstellar medium towards 64 stars in the direction of the Vela supernova remnant are presented. This survey conducted mostly between 2011 and 12 complements an earlier survey of the same stars by Cha & Sembach done in the 1993–96 period. The interval of 15–18 yr provides a base line to search for changes in the interstellar profiles. Dramatic disappearance of strong absorption components at low radial velocity is seen towards three stars – HD 63578, HD 68217, HD 76161 – over 15–18 yr; HD 68217 and HD 76161 are associated with the Vela SNR but HD 63578 is likely associated with the wind bubble of 2 Velorum. The vanishing of these cold neutral clouds in the short time of 15–18 yr needs some explanation. Other changes are seen in high-velocity Na D components.

Description: We have derived elemental abundances of a remarkable star, HD 179821, with unusual composition (e.g. [Na/Fe] = 1.0 ± 0.2 dex) and extra-ordinary spectral characteristics. Its metallicity at [Fe/H] = 0.4 dex places it among the most metal-rich stars yet analysed. The abundance analysis of this luminous star is based on high-resolution and high-quality (S/N 120–420) optical echelle spectra from McDonald Observatory and Special Astronomy Observatory. The data includes five years of observations over 21 epochs. Standard 1D local thermodynamic equilibrium analysis provides a fresh determination of the atmospheric parameters over all epochs:  T eff = 7350 ± 200 K, log g = +0.6 ± 0.3, and a microturbulent velocity = 6.6 ± 1.6 km s –1 and [Fe/H] = 0.4 ± 0.2, and a carbon abundance [C/Fe] = –0.19 ± 0.30. We find oxygen abundance [O/Fe] = –0.25 ± 0.28 and an enhancement of 0.9 dex in N. A supersonic macroturbulent velocity of 22.0 ± 2.0 km s –1 is determined from both strong and weak Fe i and Fe ii lines. Elemental abundances are obtained for 22 elements. HD 179821 is not enriched in s -process products. Eu is overabundant relative to the anticipated [X/Fe] 0.0. Some peculiarities of its optical spectrum (e.g. variability in the spectral line shapes) is noticed. This includes the line profile variations for H α line. Based on its estimated luminosity, effective temperature and surface gravity, HD 179821 is a massive star evolving to become a red supergiant and finally a Type II supernova.

Description: Recent studies have linked demographic changes and epidemiological patterns in bacterial populations using coalescent-based approaches. We identified 26 studies using skyline plots and found that 21 inferred overall population expansion. This surprising result led us to analyze the impact of natural selection, recombination (gene conversion), and sampling biases on demographic inference using skyline plots and site frequency spectra (SFS). Forward simulations based on biologically relevant parameters from Escherichia coli populations showed that theoretical arguments on the detrimental impact of recombination and especially natural selection on the reconstructed genealogies cannot be ignored in practice. In fact, both processes systematically lead to spurious interpretations of population expansion in skyline plots (and in SFS for selection). Weak purifying selection, and especially positive selection, had important effects on skyline plots, showing patterns akin to those of population expansions. State-of-the-art techniques to remove recombination further amplified these biases. We simulated three common sampling biases in microbiological research: uniform, clustered, and mixed sampling. Alone, or together with recombination and selection, they further mislead demographic inferences producing almost any possible skyline shape or SFS. Interestingly, sampling sub-populations also affected skyline plots and SFS, because the coalescent rates of populations and their sub-populations had different distributions. This study suggests that extreme caution is needed to infer demographic changes solely based on reconstructed genealogies. We suggest that the development of novel sampling strategies and the joint analyzes of diverse population genetic methods are strictly necessary to estimate demographic changes in populations where selection, recombination, and biased sampling are present.

Description: We present two models of the optical turbulence profile (model-OTP) for Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) based on measurements conducted during 2007 and 2008 using the Generalized Slope Detection and Ranging (SLODAR) method. The model-OTPs can be used as input into simulations to assess the performance of adaptive optics for the Giant Magellan Telescope. Of particular interest is the strength of the ground-layer turbulence for ground-layer adaptive optics. A total of two 1-week observing data was collected using a purpose-built instrument where observations of a bright double star are imaged by 24 x 24 Shack–Hartmann taken with the LCO 100-inch du Pont telescope. The analysis of the data yielded model-OTP consisting of a handful of statistically prominent thin layers that are statistically separated into the ground layer (below 0.5 km) and the free atmosphere for good (25 per cent), typical (50 per cent) and bad (25 per cent) observing conditions. We demonstrate that using the novel technique of Generalized SLODAR we were able to achieve three times the nominal height resolution of SLODAR and uncover important structural details in the ground layer.

Description: Chemical abundance studies of the Sun and solar twins have demonstrated that the solar composition of refractory elements is depleted when compared to volatile elements, which could be due to the formation of terrestrial planets. In order to further examine this scenario, we conducted a line-by-line differential chemical abundance analysis of the terrestrial planet host Kepler-10 and 14 of its stellar twins. Stellar parameters and elemental abundances of Kepler-10 and its stellar twins were obtained with very high precision using a strictly differential analysis of high quality Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope, Hobby–Eberly Telescope and Magellan spectra. When compared to the majority of thick disc twins, Kepler-10 shows a depletion in the refractory elements relative to the volatile elements, which could be due to the formation of terrestrial planets in the Kepler-10 system. The average abundance pattern corresponds to ~13 Earth masses, while the two known planets in Kepler-10 system have a combined ~20 Earth masses. For two of the eight thick disc twins, however, no depletion patterns are found. Although our results demonstrate that several factors [e.g. planet signature, stellar age, stellar birth location and Galactic chemical evolution (GCE)] could lead to or affect abundance trends with condensation temperature, we find that the trends give further support for the planetary signature hypothesis.

Description: Lactobacillus rhamnosus is a diverse Gram-positive species with strains isolated from different ecological niches. Here, we report the genome sequence analysis of 40 diverse strains of L. rhamnosus and their genomic comparison, with a focus on the variable genome. Genomic comparison of 40 L. rhamnosus strains discriminated the conserved genes (core genome) and regions of plasticity involving frequent rearrangements and horizontal transfer (variome). The L. rhamnosus core genome encompasses 2,164 genes, out of 4,711 genes in total (the pan-genome). The accessory genome is dominated by genes encoding carbohydrate transport and metabolism, extracellular polysaccharides (EPS) biosynthesis, bacteriocin production, pili production, the cas system, and the associated clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) loci, and more than 100 transporter functions and mobile genetic elements like phages, plasmid genes, and transposons. A clade distribution based on amino acid differences between core (shared) proteins matched with the clade distribution obtained from the presence–absence of variable genes. The phylogenetic and variome tree overlap indicated that frequent events of gene acquisition and loss dominated the evolutionary segregation of the strains within this species, which is paralleled by evolutionary diversification of core gene functions. The CRISPR-Cas system could have contributed to this evolutionary segregation. Lactobacillus rhamnosus strains contain the genetic and metabolic machinery with strain-specific gene functions required to adapt to a large range of environments. A remarkable congruency of the evolutionary relatedness of the strains’ core and variome functions, possibly favoring interspecies genetic exchanges, underlines the importance of gene-acquisition and loss within the L. rhamnosus strain diversification.

Description: We have observed high-dispersion echelle spectra of main-sequence stars in five nearby young associations – Argus, Carina-Near, Hercules-Lyra, Orion and Subgroup B4 – and derived abundances for elements ranging from Na to Eu. These are the first chemical abundance measurements for two of the five associations, while the remaining three associations are analysed more extensively in our study. Our results support the presence of chemical homogeneity among association members with a typical star-to-star abundance scatter of about 0.06 dex or less over many elements. The five associations show log (Li) consistent with their age and share a solar chemical composition for all elements with the exception of Ba. We find that all the heavy elements (Y, Zr, La, Ce, Nd, Sm and Eu) exhibit solar ratios, i.e. [X/Fe] ~= 0, while Ba is overabundant by about 0.2–0.3 dex. The origin of the overabundance of Ba is a puzzle. Within the formulation of the s -process, it is difficult to create a higher Ba abundance without a similar increase in the s -process contributions to other heavy elements (La–Sm). Given that Ba is represented by strong lines of Ba  ii and La–Sm are represented by rather weak ionized lines, the suggestion, as previously made by other studies, is that the Ba abundance may be systematically overestimated by standard methods of abundance analysis perhaps because the upper reaches of the stellar atmospheres are poorly represented by standard model atmospheres. A novel attempt to analyse the Ba  i line at 5535 Å gives a solar Ba abundance for stars with effective temperatures hotter than about 5800 K but increasingly subsolar Ba abundances for cooler stars with apparent Ba deficiencies of 0.5 dex at 5100 K. This trend with temperature may signal a serious non-local thermodynamical equilibrium effect on the Ba  i line.