Browsing by Subject "exoplanets"

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The Discovery Of Hd 37605C And A Dispositive Null Detection Of Transits Of Hd 37605B
(2012-12) Wang, Sharon Xuesong; Wright, Jason T.; Cochran, William; Kane, Steven R.; Henry, Gregory W.; Payne, Matthew J.; Endl, Michael; MacQueen, Phillip J.; Valenti, Jeff A.; Antoci, Victoria; Dragomir, Diana; Matthews, Jaymie M.; Howard, Andrew W.; Marcy, Geoffrey W.; Isaacson, Howard; Ford, Eric B.; Mahadevan, Suvrath; von Braun, Kaspar; Cochran, William; Endl, Michael; MacQueen, Phillip
We report the radial velocity discovery of a second planetary mass companion to the K0 V star HD 37605, which was already known to host an eccentric, P similar to 55 days Jovian planet, HD 37605b. This second planet, HD 37605c, has a period of similar to 7.5 years with a low eccentricity and an M sin i of similar to 3.4 M-Jup. Our discovery was made with the nearly 8 years of radial velocity follow-up at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope and Keck Observatory, including observations made as part of the Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey effort to provide precise ephemerides to long-period planets for transit follow-up. With a total of 137 radial velocity observations covering almost 8 years, we provide a good orbital solution of the HD 37605 system, and a precise transit ephemeris for HD 37605b. Our dynamic analysis reveals very minimal planet-planet interaction and an insignificant transit time variation. Using the predicted ephemeris, we performed a transit search for HD 37605b with the photometric data taken by the T12 0.8 m Automatic Photoelectric Telescope (APT) and the MOST satellite. Though the APT photometry did not capture the transit window, it characterized the stellar activity of HD 37605, which is consistent of it being an old, inactive star, with a tentative rotation period of 57.67 days. The MOST photometry enabled us to report a dispositive null detection of a non-grazing transit for this planet. Within the predicted transit window, we exclude an edge-on predicted depth of 1.9% at the >> 10 sigma level, and exclude any transit with an impact parameter b > 0.951 at greater than 5 sigma. We present the BOOTTRAN package for calculating Keplerian orbital parameter uncertainties via bootstrapping. We made a comparison and found consistency between our orbital fit parameters calculated by the RVLIN package and error bars by BOOTTRAN with those produced by a Bayesian analysis using MCMC.
Kepler-424 B: A "Lonely" Hot Jupiter That Found A Companion
(2014-11) Endl, Michael; Caldwell, Douglas A.; Barclay, Thomas; Huber, Daniel; Isaacson, Howard; Buchhave, Lars A.; Brugamyer, Erik; Robertson, Paul; Cochran, William D.; MacQueen, Phillip J.; Havel, Mathieu; Lucas, Phillip; Howell, Steve B.; Fischer, Debra; Quintana, Elisa; Ciardi, David R.; Endl, Michael
Hot Jupiter systems provide unique observational constraints for migration models in multiple systems and binaries. We report on the discovery of the Kepler-424 (KOI-214) two-planet system, which consists of a transiting hot Jupiter (Kepler-424b) in a 3.31 day orbit accompanied by a more massive outer companion in an eccentric (e = 0.3) 223 day orbit. The outer giant planet, Kepler-424c, is not detected transiting the host star. The masses of both planets and the orbital parameters for the second planet were determined using precise radial velocity (RV) measurements from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) and its High Resolution Spectrograph (HRS). In stark contrast to smaller planets, hot Jupiters are predominantly found to be lacking any nearby additional planets; they appear to be "lonely". This might be a consequence of these systems having a highly dynamical past. The Kepler-424 planetary system has a hot Jupiter in a multiple system, similar to. Andromedae. We also present our results for Kepler-422 (KOI-22), Kepler-77 (KOI-127), Kepler-43 (KOI-135), and Kepler-423 (KOI-183). These results are based on spectroscopic data collected with the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT), the Keck 1 telescope, and HET. For all systems, we rule out false positives based on various follow-up observations, confirming the planetary nature of these companions. We performed a comparison with planetary evolutionary models which indicate that these five hot Jupiters have heavy element contents between 20 and 120 M-circle plus.
Kepler-4B: A Hot Neptune-Like Planet of A G0 Star Near Main-Sequence Turnoff
(2010-04) Borucki, William J.; Koch, David G.; Brown, Timothy M.; Basri, Gibor; Batalha, Natalie M.; Caldwell, Douglas A.; Cochran, William D.; Dunham, Edward W.; Gautier, Thomas N., III; Geary, John C.; Gilliland, Ronald L.; Howell, Steve B.; Jenkins, Jon M.; Latham, David W.; Lissauer, Jack J.; Marcy, Geoffrey W.; Monet, David; Rowe, Jason F.; Sasselov, Dimitar; Cochran, William D.
Early time-series photometry from NASA's Kepler spacecraft has revealed a planet transiting the star we term Kepler-4, at R.A. = 19(h)02(m)27.(s)68, delta = +50 degrees 08'08 '' 7. The planet has an orbital period of 3.213 days and shows transits with a relative depth of 0.87 x 10(-3) and a duration of about 3.95 hr. Radial velocity (RV) measurements from the Keck High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer show a reflex Doppler signal of 9.3(-1.9)(+1.1) m s(-1), consistent with a low-eccentricity orbit with the phase expected from the transits. Various tests show no evidence for any companion star near enough to affect the light curve or the RVs for this system. From a transit-based estimate of the host star's mean density, combined with analysis of high-resolution spectra, we infer that the host star is near turnoff from the main sequence, with estimated mass and radius of 1.223(-0.091)(+0.053) M(circle dot) and 1.487(-0.084)(+0.071) R(circle dot).We estimate the planet mass and radius to be {M(P), R(P)} = {24.5 +/- 3.8 M(circle plus), 3.99 +/- 0.21 R(circle plus)}. The planet's density is near 1.9 g cm(-3); it is thus slightly denser and more massive than Neptune, but about the same size.
An M Sin I=24 M-Circle Plus Planetary Companion To The Nearby M Dwarf Gj 176
(2008-02) Endl, Michael; Cochran, William D.; Wittenmyer, Robert A.; Boss, Alan P.; Endl, Michael; Cochran, William D.; Wittenmyer, Robert A.; Boss, Alan P.
We report the detection of a planetary companion with a minimum mass of m sin i 0.0771 M-Jup 24.5 M-circle plus to the nearby (d 9.4 pc) M2.5 V star GJ 176. The star was observed as part of our M dwarf planet search at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET). The detection is based on 5 years of high-precision differential radial velocity (RV) measurements using the High-Resolution Spectrograph (HRS). The orbital period of the planet is 10.24 days. GJ 176 thus joins the small (but increasing) sample of M dwarfs hosting short-period planets with minimum masses in the Neptune-mass range. Low-mass planets could be relatively common around M dwarfs, and the current detections might represent the tip of a rocky planet population.
Masses, Radii, and Orbits of Small Kepler Planets: the Transition from Gaseous to Rocky Planets
(2014-02) Marcy, Geoffrey W.; Isaacson, Howard; Howard, Andrew W.; Rowe, Jason F.; Jenkins, Jon M.; Bryson, Stephen T.; Latham, David W.; Howell, Steve B.; Gautier, Thomas N., III; Batalha, Natalie M.; Rogers, Leslie; Ciardi, David; Fischer, Debra A.; Gilliland, Ronald L.; Kjeldsen, Hans; Christensen-Dalsgaard, Jorgen; Huber, Daniel; Chaplin, William J.; Basu, Sarbani; Buchhave, Lars A.; Quinn, Samuel N.; Borucki, William J.; Koch, David G.; Hunter, Roger; Caldwell, Douglas A.; Van Cleve, Jeffrey; Kolbl, Rea; Weiss, Lauren M.; Petigura, Erik; Seager, Sara; Morton, Timothy; Johnson, John Asher; Ballard, Sarah; Burke, Chris; Cochran, William D.; Endl, Michael; MacQueen, Phillip; Everett, Mark E.; Lissauer, Jack J.; Ford, Eric B.; Torres, Guillermo; Fressin, Francois; Brown, Timothy M.; Steffen, Jason H.; Charbonneau, David; Basri, Gibor S.; Sasselov, Dimitar D.; Winn, Joshua; Sanchis-Ojeda, Roberto; Christiansen, Jessie; Adams, Elisabeth; Henze, Christopher; Dupree, Andrea; Fabrycky, Daniel C.; Fortney, Jonathan J.; Tarter, Jill; Holman, Matthew J.; Tenenbaum, Peter; Shporer, Avi; Lucas, Philip W.; Welsh, William F.; Orosz, Jerome A.; Bedding, T. R.; Campante, T. L.; Davies, G. R.; Elsworth, Y.; Handberg, R.; Hekker, S.; Karoff, C.; Kawaler, S. D.; Lund, M. N.; Lundkvist, M.; Metcalfe, T. S.; Miglio, A.; Aguirre, V.; Silva Stello, D.; White, T. R.; Boss, Alan; Devore, Edna; Gould, Alan; Prsa, Andrej; Agol, Eric; Barclay, Thomas; Coughlin, Jeff; Brugamyer, Erik; Mullally, Fergal; Quintana, Elisa V.; Still, Martin; Thompson, Susan E.; Morrison, David; Twicken, Joseph D.; Desert, Jean-Michel; Carter, Josh; Crepp, Justin R.; Hebrard, Guillaume; Santerne, Alexandre; Moutou, Claire; Sobeck, Charlie; Hudgins, Douglas; Haas, Michael R.; Robertson, Paul; Lillo-Box, Jorge; Barrado, David; Cochran, William D.; MacQueen, Phillip J.; Endl, Michael; Robertson, Paul
We report on the masses, sizes, and orbits of the planets orbiting 22 Kepler stars. There are 49 planet candidates around these stars, including 42 detected through transits and 7 revealed by precise Doppler measurements of the host stars. Based on an analysis of the Kepler brightness measurements, along with high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy, Doppler spectroscopy, and (for 11 stars) asteroseismology, we establish low false-positive probabilities (FPPs) for all of the transiting planets (41 of 42 have an FPP under 1%), and we constrain their sizes and masses. Most of the transiting planets are smaller than three times the size of Earth. For 16 planets, the Doppler signal was securely detected, providing a direct measurement of the planet's mass. For the other 26 planets we provide either marginal mass measurements or upper limits to their masses and densities; in many cases we can rule out a rocky composition. We identify six planets with densities above 5 g cm(-3), suggesting a mostly rocky interior for them. Indeed, the only planets that are compatible with a purely rocky composition are smaller than similar to 2 R-circle plus. Larger planets evidently contain a larger fraction of low-density material (H, He, and H2O).
Planetary Transit Candidates In The Corot LRa01 Field
(2012-02) Carone, L.; Gandolfi, D.; Cabrera, J.; Hatzes, A. P.; Deeg, H. J.; Csizmadia, S.; Patzold, M.; Weingrill, J.; Aigrain, S.; Alonso, R.; Alapini, A.; Almenara, J. M.; Auvergne, M.; Baglin, A.; Barge, P.; Bonomo, A. S.; Borde, P.; Bouchy, F.; Bruntt, H.; Carpano, S.; Cochran, W. D.; Deleuil, M.; Diaz, R. F.; Dreizler, S.; Dvorak, R.; Eisloffel, J.; Eigmuller, P.; Endl, M.; Erikson, A.; Ferraz-Mello, S.; Fridlund, M.; Gazzano, J. C.; Gibson, N.; Gillon, M.; Gondoin, P.; Grziwa, S.; Gunther, E. W.; Guillot, T.; Hartmann, M.; Havel, M.; Hebrard, G.; Jorda, L.; Kabath, P.; Leger, A.; Llebaria, A.; Lammer, H.; Lovis, C.; MacQueen, P. J.; Mayor, M.; Mazeh, T.; Moutou, C.; Nortmann, L.; Ofir, A.; Ollivier, M.; Parviainen, H.; Pepe, F.; Pont, F.; Queloz, D.; Rabus, M.; Rauer, H.; Regulo, C.; Renner, S.; de la Reza, R.; Rouan, D.; Santerne, A.; Samuel, B.; Schneider, J.; Shporer, A.; Stecklum, B.; Tal-Or, L.; Tingley, B.; Udry, S.; Wuchterl, G.; Cochran, W. D.; Endl, M.; MacQueen, P.J.
Context. CoRoT is a pioneering space mission whose primary goals are stellar seismology and extrasolar planets search. Its surveys of large stellar fields generate numerous planetary candidates whose lightcurves have transit-like features. An extensive analytical and observational follow-up effort is undertaken to classify these candidates. Aims. We present the list of planetary transit candidates from the CoRoT LRa01 star field in the Monoceros constellation toward the Galactic anti-center direction. The CoRoT observations of LRa01 lasted from 24 October 2007 to 3 March 2008. Methods. We acquired and analyzed 7470 chromatic and 3938 monochromatic lightcurves. Instrumental noise and stellar variability were treated with several filtering tools by different teams from the CoRoT community. Different transit search algorithms were applied to the lightcurves. Results. Fifty-one stars were classified as planetary transit candidates in LRa01. Thirty-seven (i.e., 73% of all candidates) are >good> planetary candidates based on photometric analysis only. Thirty-two (i.e., 87% of the >good> candidates) have been followed-up. At the time of writing twenty-two cases were solved and five planets were discovered: three transiting hot-Jupiters (CoRoT-5b, CoRoT-12b, and CoRoT-21b), the first terrestrial transiting planet (CoRoT-7b), and another planet in the same system (CoRoT-7c, detected by radial velocity survey only). Evidence of another non-transiting planet in the CoRoT-7 system, namely CoRoT-7d, was recently found as well.
The Texas Scientist, Issue 1, January 2014
(University of Texas at Austin, 2014-01) University of Texas at Austin