• A. RAY

Articles written in Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy

• Evolution of massive binary stars in the LMC and its implications for radio pulsar population

The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of the Large Magellanic Cloud compiled recently by Fitzpatrick & Garmany (1990) shows that there are a number of supergiant stars immediately redward of the main sequence although theoretical models of massive stars with normal hydrogen abundance predict that the region 4.5 ≤ logTeff ≤ 4.3 should be un-populated (“gap”). Supergiants having surface enrichment of helium acquired for example from a previous phase of accretion from a binary companion, however, evolve in a way so that the evolved models and observed data are consistent — an observation first made by Tuchman & Wheeler (1990). We compare the available optical data on OB supergiants with computed evolutionary tracks of massive stars of metallicity relevant to the LMC with and without helium-enriched envelopes and conclude that a large fraction ( 60 per cent) of supergiant stars may occur in binaries. As these less evolved binaries will later evolve into massive X-ray binaries, the observed number and orbital period distribution of the latter can constrain the evolutionary scenarios of the supergiant binaries. The distributions of post main sequence binaries and closely related systems like WR + O stars are bimodal-consisting of close and wide binaries in which the latter type is numerically dominating. When the primary star explodes as a supernova leaving behind a neutron star, the system receives a kick and in some cases can lead to runaway O-stars. We calculate the expected space velocity distribution for these systems. After the second supernova explosion, the binaries in most cases, will be disrupted leading to two runaway neutron stars. In between the two explosions, the first born neutron star’s spin evolution will be affected by accretion of mass from the companion star. We determine the steady-state spin and radio luminosity distributions of single pulsars born from the massive stars under some simple assumptions. Due to their great distance, only the brightest radio pulsars may be detected in a flux-limited survey of the LMC. A small but significant number of observable single radio pulsars arising out of the disrupted massive binaries may appear in the short spin period range. Most pulsars will have a low velocity of ejection and therefore may cluster around the OB associations in the LMC.

• The bolometric light curve of SN 1993J and the nature of its progenitor

We have constructed the bolometric light curve of SN 1993J based on UBVRI(JHK) photometric data obtained from various sources and assumingAV = 0 and a distance modulus of 27.6. Effective temperatures and photosphere radius at various times have been obtained from detailed blackbody fits. The bolometric light curve shows two maxima. The short rise time to the second maximum, and the luminosities at the minimum and the second maximum are used to constrain the properties of the progenitor star. The total mass of the hydrogen envelope MH, in the star is found to be ≲ 0.2 M at the time of explosion, and the explosion ejected about 0.05 M of Ni56. Thin hydrogen envelope combined with a sufficient presupernova luminosity suggest that the exploding star was in a binary with a probable period range of 5yr ≤Porb 11yr.

• Planetary nebulae with UVIT: A progress report

The spectral region between 1250–3000 Å contains important spectral lines to understand the morphological structures and evolution of planetary nebulae. This is the region sampled by UVIT through various filter bands both in the continuum and in emission lines (e.g.. [C iv], [He i], [Mg ii] etc.). We have mapped several planetary nebulae with different characteristics, ranging in morphology from bipolar to wide and diffuse, and in various states of ionization, comparing the UV with the X-ray morphologies wherever the X-ray images were also available. The major unanticipated discovery with UVIT has been the detection of previously undetected, cold, fluorescent, H$_2$ gas surrounding some planetary nebulae. This may be a possible solution to the missing mass problem. Here we present a review of our studies so far done (both published and on going) with UVIT.

• # Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy

Volume 43, 2022
All articles
Continuous Article Publishing mode

• # Continuous Article Publication

Posted on January 27, 2016

Since January 2016, the Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy has moved to Continuous Article Publishing (CAP) mode. This means that each accepted article is being published immediately online with DOI and article citation ID with starting page number 1. Articles are also visible in Web of Science immediately. All these have helped shorten the publication time and have improved the visibility of the articles.

• # Editorial Note on Continuous Article Publication

Posted on July 25, 2019