3,589 research outputs found
XB-70 flight test data comparisons with simulation predictions of inlet unstart and buzz
XB-70 flight test data comparison with simulated predictions of inlet unstart and buz
Automated generation of geo-referenced mosaics from video collected by deep submergence vehicles: an example from Rosebud vent (Galapagos Rift)
MOA-2011-BLG-293Lb: First Microlensing Planet possibly in the Habitable Zone
We used Keck adaptive optics observations to identify the first planet
discovered by microlensing to lie in or near the habitable zone, i.e., at
projected separation AU from its host, being the highest microlensing mass definitely identified.
The planet has a mass , and could in principle
have habitable moons. This is also the first planet to be identified as being
in the Galactic bulge with good confidence: kpc. The
planet/host masses and distance were previously not known, but only estimated
using Bayesian priors based on a Galactic model (Yee et al. 2012). These
estimates had suggested that the planet might be a super-Jupiter orbiting an M
dwarf, a very rare class of planets. We obtained high-resolution images
using Keck adaptive optics to detect the lens and so test this hypothesis. We
clearly detect light from a G dwarf at the position of the event, and exclude
all interpretations other than that this is the lens with high confidence
(95%), using a new astrometric technique. The calibrated magnitude of the
planet host star is . We infer the following probabilities
for the three possible orbital configurations of the gas giant planet: 53% to
be in the habitable zone, 35% to be near the habitable zone, and 12% to be
beyond the snow line, depending on the atmospherical conditions and the
uncertainties on the semimajor axis.Comment: Accepted by ApJ, 21 pages, 4 figure
The Star Blended with the MOA-2008-BLG-310 Source Is Not the Exoplanet Host Star
High resolution Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image analysis of the
MOA-2008-BLG-310 microlens system indicates that the excess flux at the
location of the source found in the discovery paper cannot primarily be due to
the lens star because it does not match the lens-source relative proper motion,
, predicted by the microlens models. This excess flux is most
likely to be due to an unrelated star that happens to be located in close
proximity to the source star. Two epochs of HST observations indicate proper
motion for this blend star that is typical of a random bulge star, but is not
consistent with a companion to the source or lens stars if the flux is
dominated by only one star, aside from the lens. We consider models in which
the excess flux is due to a combination of an unrelated star and the lens star,
and this yields 95\% confidence level upper limit on the lens star brightness
of and . A Bayesian analysis using a standard
Galactic model and these magnitude limits yields a host star mass , a planet mass of at a projected separation of AU. This result illustrates excess flux in a high
resolution image of a microlens-source system need not be due to the lens. It
is important to check that the lens-source relative proper motion is consistent
with the microlensing prediction. The high resolution image analysis techniques
developed in this paper can be used to verify the WFIRST exoplanet microlensing
survey mass measurements.Comment: Submitted to AJ on March 18, 201
Composition of Ices in Low-Mass Extrasolar Planets
We study the formation conditions of icy planetesimals in protoplanetary
disks in order to determine the composition of ices in small and cold
extrasolar planets. Assuming that ices are formed from hydrates, clathrates,
and pure condensates, we calculate their mass fractions with respect to the
total quantity of ices included in planetesimals, for a grid of disk models. We
find that the composition of ices weakly depends on the adopted disk
thermodynamic conditions, and is rather influenced by the initial composition
of the gas phase. The use of a plausible range of molecular abundance ratios
and the variation of the relative elemental carbon over oxygen ratio in the gas
phase of protoplanetary disks, allow us to apply our model to a wide range of
planetary systems. Our results can thus be used to constrain the icy/volatile
phase composition of cold planets evidenced by microlensing surveys,
hypothetical ocean-planets and carbon planets, which could be detected by Corot
or Kepler.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
Re-examination of the possible tidal stream in front of the LMC
It has recently been suggested that the stars in a vertical extension of the
red clump feature seen in LMC color-magnitude diagrams could belong to a tidal
stream of material located in front of that galaxy. If this claim is correct,
this foreground concentration of stars could contribute significantly to the
rate of gravitational microlensing events observed in the LMC microlensing
experiments. Here we present radial velocity measurements of stars in this
so-called ``vertical red clump'' (VRC) population. The observed stellar sample,
it transpires, has typical LMC kinematics. It is shown that it is improbable
that an intervening tidal stream should have the same distribution of radial
velocities as the LMC, which is consistent with an earlier study that showed
that the VRC feature is more likely a young stellar population in the main body
of that galaxy. However, the kinematic data do not discriminate against the
possibility that the VRC is an LMC halo population.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ
Solutions for 10,000 Eclipsing Binaries in the Bulge Fields of OGLE II Using DEBiL
We have developed a fully-automated pipeline for systematically identifying
and analyzing eclipsing binaries within large datasets of light curves. The
pipeline is made up of multiple tiers which subject the light curves to
increasing levels of scrutiny. After each tier, light curves that did not
conform to a given criteria were filtered out of the pipeline, reducing the
load on the following, more computationally intensive tiers. As a central
component of the pipeline, we created the fully automated Detached Eclipsing
Binary Light curve fitter (DEBiL), which rapidly fits large numbers of light
curves to a simple model. Using the results of DEBiL, light curves of interest
can be flagged for follow-up analysis. As a test case, we analyzed the 218699
light curves within the bulge fields of the OGLE II survey and produced 10862
model fits. We point out a small number of extreme examples as well as
unexpected structure found in several of the population distributions. We
expect this approach to become increasingly important as light curve datasets
continue growing in both size and number.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 36 pages, 15 figures, 5 tables. See
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~jdevor/DEBiL.html for high-resolution figures and
further informatio
Confirmation of the Planetary Microlensing Signal and Star and Planet Mass Determinations for Event OGLE-2005-BLG-169
We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3)
observations of the source and lens stars for planetary microlensing event
OGLE-2005-BLG-169, which confirm the relative proper motion prediction due to
the planetary light curve signal observed for this event. This (and the
companion Keck result) provide the first confirmation of a planetary
microlensing signal, for which the deviation was only 2%. The follow-up
observations determine the flux of the planetary host star in multiple
passbands and remove light curve model ambiguity caused by sparse sampling of
part of the light curve. This leads to a precise determination of the
properties of the OGLE-2005-BLG-169Lb planetary system. Combining the
constraints from the microlensing light curve with the photometry and
astrometry of the HST/WFC3 data, we find star and planet masses of M_* = 0.69+-
0.02 M_solar and m_p = 14.1 +- 0.9 M_earth. The planetary microlens system is
located toward the Galactic bulge at a distance of D_L = 4.1 +- 0.4 kpc, and
the projected star-planet separation is a_perp = 3.5 +- 0.3 AU, corresponding
to a semi-major axis of a = 4.0 (+2.2 -0.6) AU.Comment: 21 pages, including 5 figures, published in Ap
Continuous monitoring reveals multiple controls on ecosystem metabolism in a suburban stream
1. Primary production and respiration in streams, collectively referred to as stream ecosystem metabolism, are fundamental processes that determine trophic structure, biomass and nutrient cycling. Few studies have used highâfrequency measurements of gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) over extended periods to characterise the factors that control stream ecosystem metabolism at hourly, daily, seasonal and annual scales.
2. We measured ecosystem metabolism at 5âmin intervals for 23âmonths in Shepherd Creek, a small suburban stream in Cincinnati, Ohio (U.S.A.).
3. Daily GPP was best predicted by a model containing light and its synergistic interaction with water temperature. Water temperature alone was not significantly related to daily GPP, rather high temperatures enhanced the capacity of autotrophs to use available light.
4. The relationship between GPP and light was further explored using photosynthesisâirradiance curves (PâI curves). Light saturation of GPP was evident throughout the winter and spring and the PâI curve frequently exhibited strong counterclockwise hysteresis. Hysteresis occurred when water temperatures were greater in the afternoon than in the morning, although light was similar, further suggesting that light availability interacts synergistically with water temperature.
5. Storm flows strongly depressed GPP in the spring while desiccation arrested aquatic GPP and ER in late summer and autumn.
6. Ecosystem respiration was best predicted by GPP, water temperature and the rate of water exchange between the surface channel and transient storage zones. We estimate that c. 70% of newly fixed carbon was immediately respired by autotrophs and closely associated heterotrophs.
7. Interannual, seasonal, daily and hourly variability in ecosystem metabolism was attributable to a combination of light availability, water temperature, storm flow dynamics and desiccation. Human activities affect all these factors in urban and suburban streams, suggesting stream ecosystem processes are likely to respond in complex ways to changing land use and climate
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