Confirmation of the planet around HD 95086 by direct imaging

VLT/NaCo angular differential imaging at L' (3.8 microns) revealed a probable giant planet comoving with the young and early-type HD 95086 also known to harbor an extended debris disk. The discovery was based on the proper motion analysis of two datasets spanning 15 months. However, the second dataset suffered from bad atmospheric conditions, which limited the significance of the redetection at the 3 sigma level. In this Letter, we report new VLT/NaCo observations of HD 95086 obtained on 2013 June 26-27 at L' to recover the planet candidate. We unambiguously redetect the companion HD 95086 b with multiple independent pipelines at a signal-to-noise ratio greater than or equal to 5. Combined with previously reported measurements, our astrometry decisively shows that the planet is comoving with HD 95086 and inconsistent with a background object. With a revised mass of 5 pm 2 Jupiter masses, estimated from its L' photometry and "hot-start" models at 17 pm 4 Myr, HD 95086 b becomes a new benchmark for further physical and orbital characterization of young giant planets.Comment: accepted for publication to AP

Sigma1 Targeting to Suppress Aberrant Androgen Receptor Signaling in Prostate Cancer.

Suppression of androgen receptor (AR) activity in prostate cancer by androgen depletion or direct AR antagonist treatment, although initially effective, leads to incurable castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) via compensatory mechanisms including resurgence of AR and AR splice variant (ARV) signaling. Emerging evidence suggests that Sigma1 (also known as sigma-1 receptor) is a unique chaperone or scaffolding protein that contributes to cellular protein homeostasis. We reported previously that some Sigma1-selective small molecules can be used to pharmacologically modulate protein homeostasis pathways. We hypothesized that these Sigma1-mediated responses could be exploited to suppress AR protein levels and activity. Here we demonstrate that treatment with a small-molecule Sigma1 inhibitor prevented 5α- dihydrotestosterone-mediated nuclear translocation of AR and induced proteasomal degradation of AR and ARV, suppressing the transcriptional activity and protein levels of both full-length and splice-variant AR. Consistent with these data, RNAi knockdown of Sigma1 resulted in decreased AR levels and transcriptional activity. Furthermore, Sigma1 physically associated with ARV7 and A

The DLG processor: A data management executive for the engineering design integration (EDIN) system. Volume 2: Programmers' manual

For abstract, see N75-17122

The SPHERE data center: a reference for high contrast imaging processing

The objective of the SPHERE Data Center is to optimize the scientific return of SPHERE at the VLT, by providing optimized reduction procedures, services to users and publicly available reduced data. This paper describes our motivation, the implementation of the service (partners, infrastructure and developments), services, description of the on-line data, and future developments. The SPHERE Data Center is operational and has already provided reduced data with a good reactivity to many observers. The first public reduced data have been made available in 2017. The SPHERE Data Center is gathering a strong expertise on SPHERE data and is in a very good position to propose new reduced data in the future, as well as improved reduction procedures.Comment: SF2A proceeding

Planetary Science Virtual Observatory architecture

In the framework of the Europlanet-RI program, a prototype of Virtual Observatory dedicated to Planetary Science was defined. Most of the activity was dedicated to the elaboration of standards to retrieve and visualize data in this field, and to provide light procedures to teams who wish to contribute with on-line data services. The architecture of this VO system and selected solutions are presented here, together with existing demonstrators

The gravitational mass of Proxima Centauri measured with SPHERE from a microlensing event

Proxima Centauri, our closest stellar neighbour, is a low-mass M5 dwarf orbiting in a triple system. An Earth-mass planet with an 11 day period has been discovered around this star. The star's mass has been estimated only indirectly using a mass-luminosity relation, meaning that large uncertainties affect our knowledge of its properties. To refine the mass estimate, an independent method has been proposed: gravitational microlensing. By taking advantage of the close passage of Proxima Cen in front of two background stars, it is possible to measure the astrometric shift caused by the microlensing effect due to these close encounters and estimate the gravitational mass of the lens (Proxima Cen). Microlensing events occurred in 2014 and 2016 with impact parameters, the closest approach of Proxima Cen to the background star, of 1\farcs6 $\pm$ 0\farcs1 and 0\farcs5 $\pm$ 0\farcs1, respectively. Accurate measurements of the positions of the background stars during the last two years have been obtained with HST/WFC3, and with VLT/SPHERE from the ground. The SPHERE campaign started on March 2015, and continued for more than two years, covering 9 epochs. The parameters of Proxima Centauri's motion on the sky, along with the pixel scale, true North, and centering of the instrument detector were readjusted for each epoch using the background stars visible in the IRDIS field of view. The experiment has been successful and the astrometric shift caused by the microlensing effect has been measured for the second event in 2016. We used this measurement to derive a mass of 0.150$^{\textrm{+}0.062}_{-0.051}$ (an error of $\sim$ 40\%) \MSun for Proxima Centauri acting as a lens. This is the first and the only currently possible measurement of the gravitational mass of Proxima Centauri.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted by MNRA

A narrow, edge-on disk resolved around HD 106906 with SPHERE

HD~106906AB is so far the only young binary system around which a planet has been imaged and a debris disk evidenced thanks to a strong IR excess. As such, it represents a unique opportunity to study the dynamics of young planetary systems. We aim at further investigating the close (tens of au scales) environment of the HD~106906AB system. We used the extreme AO fed, high contrast imager SPHERE recently installed on the VLT to observe HD~106906. Both the IRDIS imager and the Integral Field Spectrometer were used. We discovered a very inclined, ring-like disk at a distance of 65~au from the star. The disk shows a strong brightness asymmetry with respect to its semi-major axis. It shows a smooth outer edge, compatible with ejection of small grains by the stellar radiation pressure. We show furthermore that the planet's projected position is significantly above the disk's PA. Given the determined disk inclination, it is not excluded though that the planet could still orbit within the disk plane if at a large separation (2000--3000 au). We identified several additional point sources in the SPHERE/IRDIS field-of-view, that appear to be background objects. We compare this system with other debris disks sharing similarities, and we briefly discuss the present results in the framework of dynamical evolution.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysic

Post conjunction detection of β\beta Pictoris b with VLT/SPHERE

With an orbital distance comparable to that of Saturn in the solar system, \bpic b is the closest (semi-major axis $\simeq$\,9\,au) exoplanet that has been imaged to orbit a star. Thus it offers unique opportunities for detailed studies of its orbital, physical, and atmospheric properties, and of disk-planet interactions. With the exception of the discovery observations in 2003 with NaCo at the Very Large Telescope (VLT), all following astrometric measurements relative to \bpic have been obtained in the southwestern part of the orbit, which severely limits the determination of the planet's orbital parameters. We aimed at further constraining \bpic b orbital properties using more data, and, in particular, data taken in the northeastern part of the orbit. We used SPHERE at the VLT to precisely monitor the orbital motion of beta \bpic b since first light of the instrument in 2014. We were able to monitor the planet until November 2016, when its angular separation became too small (125 mas, i.e., 1.6\,au) and prevented further detection. We redetected \bpic b on the northeast side of the disk at a separation of 139\,mas and a PA of 30$^{\circ}$ in September 2018. The planetary orbit is now well constrained. With a semi-major axis (sma) of $a = 9.0 \pm 0.5$ au (1 $\sigma$), it definitely excludes previously reported possible long orbital periods, and excludes \bpic b as the origin of photometric variations that took place in 1981. We also refine the eccentricity and inclination of the planet. From an instrumental point of view, these data demonstrate that it is possible to detect, if they exist, young massive Jupiters that orbit at less than 2 au from a star that is 20 pc away.Comment: accepted by A&

High-Cadence, High-Contrast Imaging for Exoplanet Mapping: Observations of the HR 8799 Planets with VLT/SPHERE Satellite Spot-Corrected Relative Photometry

Time-resolved photometry is an important new probe of the physics of condensate clouds in extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs. Extreme adaptive optics systems can directly image planets, but precise brightness measurements are challenging. We present VLT/SPHERE high-contrast, time-resolved broad H-band near-infrared photometry for four exoplanets in the HR 8799 system, sampling changes from night to night over five nights with relatively short integrations. The photospheres of these four planets are often modeled by patchy clouds and may show large-amplitude rotational brightness modulations. Our observations provide high-quality images of the system. We present a detailed performance analysis of different data analysis approaches to accurately measure the relative brightnesses of the four exoplanets. We explore the information in satellite spots and demonstrate their use as a proxy for image quality. While the brightness variations of the satellite spots are strongly correlated, we also identify a second-order anti-correlation pattern between the different spots. Our study finds that PCA-based KLIP reduction with satellite spot-modulated artificial planet-injection based photometry (SMAP) leads to a significant (~3x) gain in photometric accuracy over standard aperture-based photometry and reaches 0.1 mag per point accuracy for our dataset, the signal-to-noise of which is limited by small field rotation. Relative planet-to-planet photometry can be compared be- tween nights, enabling observations spanning multiple nights to probe variability. Recent high-quality relative H-band photometry of the b-c planet pair agree to about 1%.Comment: Astrophysical Journal, in pres