We present homogeneous abundance analysis of over 20 elements for 385 very metal-poor (VMP) stars based on the LAMOST survey and follow-up observations with the Subaru Telescope. It is the largest high-resolution VMP sample (including 363 new objects) studied by a single program, and the first attempt to accurately determine evolutionary stages for such a large sample based on Gaia parallaxes. The sample covers a wide metallicity range from [Fe/H] ≲ −1.7 down to [Fe/H] ∼ −4.3, including over 110 objects with [Fe/H] ≤ −3.0. The expanded coverage in evolutionary status makes it possible to define the abundance trends respectively for giants and turnoff stars. The newly obtained abundance data confirm most abundance trends found by previous studies, but also provide useful updates and new samples of outliers. The Li plateau is seen in main-sequence turnoff stars with −2.5 < [Fe/H] < −1.7 in our sample, whereas the average Li abundance is clearly lower at lower metallicity. Mg, Si, and Ca are overabundant with respect to Fe, showing decreasing trend with increasing metallicity. Comparisons with chemical evolution models indicate that the overabundance of Ti, Sc, and Co are not well reproduced by current theoretical predictions. Correlations are seen between Sc and α-elements, while Zn shows a detectable correlation only with Ti but not with other α-elements. The fraction of carbon-enhanced stars ([C/Fe] > 0.7) is in the range of 20%–30% for turnoff stars depending on the treatment of objects for which C abundance is not determined, which is much higher than that in giants (∼8%). Twelve Mg-poor stars ([Mg/Fe] < 0.0) have been identified in a wide metallicity range from [Fe/H] ∼ −3.8 through −1.7. Twelve Eu-rich stars ([Eu/Fe] > 1.0) have been discovered in −3.4 < [Fe/H] < −2.0, enlarging the sample of r-process-enhanced stars with relatively high metallicity.

We present the second release of value-added catalogues of the LAMOST Spectroscopic Survey of the Galactic Anticentre (LSS-GAC DR2). The catalogues present values of radial velocity V_r, atmospheric parameters – effective temperature T_eff, surface gravity log g, metallicity [Fe/H], α-element to iron (metal) abundance ratio [α/Fe] ([α/M]), elemental abundances [C/H] and [N/H] and absolute magnitudes M_V and $$M_{K_{\rm s}}$$ deduced from 1.8 million spectra of 1.4 million unique stars targeted by the LSS-GAC since 2011 September until 2014 June. The catalogues also give values of interstellar reddening, distance and orbital parameters determined with a variety of techniques, as well as proper motions and multiband photometry from the far-UV to the mid-IR collected from the literature and various surveys. Accuracies of radial velocities reach 5 km s⁻¹ for the late-type stars, and those of distance estimates range between 10 and 30 per cent, depending on the spectral signal-to-noise ratios. Precisions of [Fe/H], [C/H] and [N/H] estimates reach 0.1 dex, and those of [α/Fe] and [α/M] reach 0.05 dex. The large number of stars, the contiguous sky coverage, the simple yet non-trivial target selection function and the robust estimates of stellar radial velocities and atmospheric parameters, distances and elemental abundances make the catalogues a valuable data set to study the structure and evolution of the Galaxy, especially the solar-neighbourhood and the outer disc.

We selected 4593 hot subdwarf candidates from the Gaia DR2 Hertzsprung–Russell (HR) diagram. By combining the sample with Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) DR5, we identified 294 hot subdwarf stars, including 169 sdB, 63 sdOB, 31 He-sdOB, 22 sdO, 7 He-sdO, and 2 He-sdB stars. The atmospheric parameters (e.g., T _eff, log g, log(nHe/nH)) are obtained by fitting the hydrogen (H) and helium (He) line profiles with synthetic spectra. Two distinct He sequences of hot subdwarf stars are clearly presented in the T _eff–log g diagram. We found that the He-rich sequence consists of the bulk of sdB and sdOB stars, as well as all of the He-sdB, He-sdO, and He-sdOB stars in our samples, while all the stars in the He-weak sequence belong to the sdO spectral type, combined with a few sdB and sdOB stars. We demonstrated that the combination of Gaia DR2 and LAMOST DR5 allows one to uncover a huge number of new hot subdwarf stars in our Galaxy.

182 single-lined hot subdwarf stars are identified by using spectra from the sixth and seventh data releases (DR6 and DR7) of the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope survey. We classified all the hot subdwarf stars using a canonical classification scheme, and got 89 sdB, 37 sdOB, 26 sdO, 24 He-sdOB, 3 He-sdO, and 3 He-sdB stars, respectively. Among these stars, 108 hot subdwarfs are newly discovered, while 74 stars were reported by previous catalogs. The atmospheric parameters of these stars were obtained by fitting the hydrogen (H) and helium (He) lines with non-local thermodynamic equilibrium model atmospheres. The atmospheric parameters confirm the two He sequences and the two subgroups of He-sdOB stars in our samples, which were found by previous studies in the T _eff– diagram. Our results demonstrate different origins of field hot subdwarf stars and extreme horizontal branch stars in globular clusters, and provide strict observational limits on the formation and evolution models of the different sub-types of these evolved objects. Based on the results, we evaluated the completeness of the Geier et al. catalog. We found the fraction of hot subwarf stars is between 10% and 60%, depending on the brightness of the sample. A more accurate estimation for the hot subdwarf fraction can be obtained when similar results from composite spectra will become available.

We present precise photometric estimates of stellar parameters, including effective temperature, metallicity, luminosity classification, distance, and stellar age, for nearly 26 million stars using the methodology developed in the first paper of this series, based on the stellar colors from the Stellar Abundances and Galactic Evolution Survey (SAGES) Data Release 1 and Gaia Early Data Release 3. The optimal design of stellar-parameter sensitive uv filters by SAGES has enabled us to determine photometric-metallicity estimates down to −3.5, similar to our previous results with the SkyMapper Southern Survey (SMSS), yielding a large sample of over five million metal-poor ([Fe/H] ≤ −1.0) stars and nearly one million very metal-poor ([Fe/H] ≤ −2.0) stars. The typical precision is around 0.1 dex for both dwarf and giant stars with [Fe/H] > −1.0, and 0.15–0.25/0.3–0.4 dex for dwarf/giant stars with [Fe/H] < −1.0. Using the precise parallax measurements and stellar colors from Gaia, effective temperature, luminosity classification, distance, and stellar age are further derived for our sample stars. This huge data set in the Northern sky from SAGES, together with similar data in the Southern sky from SMSS, will greatly advance our understanding of the Milky Way, in particular its formation and evolution.

A total of 222 hot subdwarf stars were identified with LAMOST DR8 spectra, among which 131 stars show composite spectra and have been decomposed, while 91 stars present single-lined spectra. Atmospheric parameters of all sample stars were obtained by fitting hydrogen (H) and helium (He) line profiles with synthetic spectra. Two long-period composite sdB binaries were newly discovered by combining our sample with the non-single-star data from Gaia DR3. One of the new systems presents the highest eccentricity (i.e., 0.5 ± 0.09) among known wide sdB binaries, which is beyond model predictions. A total of 15 composite sdB stars fall in the high-probability binary region of the RUWE−AEN plane and deserve priority follow-up observations to further study their binary nature. A distinct gap is clearly presented among temperatures of cool companions for our composite-spectrum sample, but we could not come to a conclusion as to whether this feature is connected to the formation history of hot subdwarf stars before their binary natures are confirmed.