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The Ophiuchus stream is a short arc-like stellar feature of uncertain origin located $\sim 5$ kpc North of the Galactic centre. New proper motions from the second $Gaia$ data release reconcile the direction of motion of stream members with the stream arc, resolving a puzzling mismatch reported in earlier work. We use N-body simulations to show that the stream is likely only on its second pericentric passage, and thus was formed recently. The simulations suggest that the entire disrupted progenitor is visible in the observed stream today, and that little further tidal debris lies beyond the ends of the stream. The luminosity, length, width, and velocity dispersion of the stream suggest a globular cluster (GC) progenitor substantially fainter and of lower surface brightness than estimated in previous work, and unlike any other known globulars in the Galaxy. This result suggests the existence of clusters that would extend the known GC population to fainter and more weakly bound systems than hitherto known. How such a weakly-bound cluster of old stars survived until it was disrupted so recently, however, remains a mystery. Integrating backwards in time, we find that the orbits of Sagittarius and Ophiuchus passed within $\sim 5$ kpc of each other about $\sim 100$ Myrs ago, an interaction that might help resolve this puzzle. Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, submitted to MNRAS

We have investigated the crustal properties of neutron stars without fallback accretion. We have calculated the chemical evolution of the neutron star crust in three different cases (a modified Urca process without the thermal influence of a crust, a thick crust, and a direct Urca process with a thin crust) in order to determine the detailed composition of the envelope and atmosphere as the nuclear reactions freeze out. Using a nuclear reaction network up to technetium, we calculate the distribution of nuclei at various depths of the neutron star. The nuclear reactions quench when the cooling timescale is shorter than the inverse of the reaction rate. Trace light elements among the calculated isotopes may have enough time to float to the surface before the layer crystallizes and form the atmosphere or envelope of the neutron star. The composition of the neutron-star envelope determines the total photon flux from the surface, and the composition of the atmosphere determines the emergent spectrum. Our calculations using each of the three cooling models indicate that without accretion of fallback the neutron star atmospheres are dependent on the assumed cooling process of the neutron star. Each of the cooling methods have different elements composing the atmosphere: for the modified Urca process the atmosphere is $^{28}$Si, the thick crust has an atmosphere of $^{50}$Cr, and the thin crust has an atmosphere of $^{40}$Ca. In all three cases the atmospheres are composed of elements which are lighter then iron.

We present observations with the planet finder Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) of a selected sample of the most promising radial velocity (RV) companions for high-contrast imaging. Using a Monte Carlo simulation to explore all the possible inclinations of the orbit of wide RV companions, we identified the systems with companions that could potentially be detected with SPHERE. We found the most favourable RV systems to observe are: HD 142, GJ 676, HD 39091, HIP 70849, and HD 30177 and carried out observations of these systems during SPHERE Guaranteed Time Observing. To reduce the intensity of the starlight and reveal faint companions, we used principal component analysis algorithms alongside angular and spectral differential imaging. We injected synthetic planets with known flux to evaluate the self-subtraction caused by our data reduction and to determine the 5σ contrast in the J band versus separation for our reduced images. We estimated the upper limit on detectable companion mass around the selected stars from the contrast plot obtained from our data reduction. Although our observations enabled contrasts larger than 15 mag at a few tenths of arcsec from the host stars, we detected no planets. However, we were able to set upper mass limits around the stars using AMES-COND evolutionary models. We can exclude the presence of companions more massive than 25–28 MJup around these stars, confirming the substellar nature of these RV companions. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 480 (1) ISSN:0035-8711 ISSN:1365-2966

We study stellar-halo formation using six Milky Way-mass galaxies in FIRE-2 cosmological zoom simulations. We find that $5-40\%$ of the outer ($50-300$ kpc) stellar halo in each system consists of $\textit{in-situ}$ stars that were born in outflows from the main galaxy. Outflow stars originate from gas accelerated by super-bubble winds, which can be compressed, cool, and form co-moving stars. The majority of these stars remain bound to the halo and fall back with orbital properties similar to the rest of the stellar halo at $z=0$.In the outer halo, outflow stars are more spatially homogeneous, metal rich, and alpha-element-enhanced than the accreted stellar halo. At the solar location, up to $\sim 10 \%$ of our kinematically-identified halo stars were born in outflows; the fraction rises to as high as $\sim 40\%$ for the most metal-rich local halo stars ([Fe/H] $> -0.5$). We conclude that the Milky Way stellar halo could contain local counterparts to stars that are observed to form in molecular outflows in distant galaxies. Searches for such a population may provide a new, near-field approach to constraining feedback and outflow physics. A stellar halo contribution from outflows is a phase-reversal of the classic halo formation scenario of Eggen, Lynden-Bell $\&$ Sandange, who suggested that halo stars formed in rapidly $\textit{infalling}$ gas clouds. Stellar outflows may be observable in direct imaging of external galaxies and could provide a source for metal-rich, extreme velocity stars in the Milky Way. 19 pages, 20 figures, submitted to MNRAS

We determine the response of a self-similar isothermal stellar system to small adiabatic gravitational perturbations. For odd spherical harmonics, the response is identical to the response of the analogous isothermal fluid system. For even spherical harmonics, the response can be regarded as an infinite series of wavetrains in $\log r$, implying alternating compression and rarefaction in equal logarithmic radius intervals. Partly because of the oscillatory nature of the solutions, tidal fields from external sources are not strongly amplified by an intervening isothermal stellar system, except at radii $\lta 10^{-3.5}$ times the satellite radius; at some radii the stellar system can even screen the external tidal field in a manner analogous to Debye screening. As Weinberg has pointed out, individual resonances in a stellar system can strongly amplify external tidal fields over a limited radial range, but we cannot address this possibility because we examine only adiabatic perturbations. We also discuss the application of our method to the halo response caused by the slow growth of an embedded thin disk. Comment: 24 pages, 3 figures, submitted to MNRAS

The COnstrain Dark Energy with X-ray clusters (CODEX) sample contains the largest flux limited sample of X-ray clusters at $0.35 = \alpha \mu + \beta$, with $\mu = \ln (M_{200c}/M_{\mathrm{piv}})$, and $M_{\mathrm{piv}} = 10^{14.81} M_{\odot}$. We find a slope $\alpha = 0.49^{+0.20}_{-0.15}$, normalization $ \exp(\beta) = 84.0^{+9.2}_{-14.8}$ and $\sigma_{\ln \lambda | \mu} = 0.17^{+0.13}_{-0.09}$ using CFHT richness estimates. In comparison to other weak lensing richness-mass relations, we find the normalization of the richness statistically agreeing with the normalization of other scaling relations from a broad redshift range ($0.0