91 research outputs found
Sherlock: An Automated Follow-Up Telescope for Wide-Field Transit Searches
The most significant challenge currently facing photometric surveys for
transiting gas-giant planets is that of confusion with eclipsing binary systems
that mimic the photometric signature. A simple way to reject most forms of
these false positives is high-precision, rapid-cadence monitoring of the
suspected transit at higher angular resolution and in several filters. We are
currently building a system that will perform higher-angular-resolution,
multi-color follow-up observations of candidate systems identified by Sleuth
(our wide-field transit survey instrument at Palomar), and its two twin system
instruments in Tenerife and northern Arizona.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in AIP Conf Proc: The Search for Other
Worlds, eds. S. S. Holt & D. Demin
Characterizing User Behavior and Information Propagation on a Social Multimedia Network
An increasing portion of modern socializing takes place via online social
networks. Members of these communities often play distinct roles that can be
deduced from observations of users' online activities. One such activity is the
sharing of multimedia, the popularity of which can vary dramatically. Here we
discuss our initial analysis of anonymized, scraped data from consenting
Facebook users, together with associated demographic and psychological
profiles. We present five clusters of users with common observed online
behaviors, where these users also show correlated profile characteristics.
Finally, we identify some common properties of the most popular multimedia
content.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, to be published in the proceedings of
the Int. Workshop on Social Multimedia Research (SMMR) 2013. 2013 IEE
Absolute properties of the low-mass eclipsing binary CM Draconis
Spectroscopic and eclipsing binary systems offer the best means for
determining accurate physical properties of stars, including their masses and
radii. The data available for low-mass stars have yielded firm evidence that
stellar structure models predict smaller radii and higher effective
temperatures than observed, but the number of systems with detailed analyses is
still small. In this paper we present a complete reanalysis of one of such
eclipsing systems, CM Dra, composed of two dM4.5 stars. New and existing light
curves as well as a radial velocity curve are modeled to measure the physical
properties of both components. The masses and radii determined for the
components of CM Dra are M1=0.2310+/-0.0009 Msun, M2=0.2141+/-0.0010 Msun,
R1=0.2534+/-0.0019 Rsun, and R2=0.2396+/-0.0015 Rsun. With relative
uncertainties well below the 1% level, these values constitute the most
accurate properties to date for fully convective stars. This makes CM Dra a
valuable benchmark for testing theoretical models. In comparing our
measurements with theory, we confirm the discrepancies reported previously for
other low-mass eclipsing binaries. These discrepancies seem likely to be due to
the effects of magnetic activity. We find that the orbit of this system is
slightly eccentric, and we have made use of eclipse timings spanning three
decades to infer the apsidal motion and other related properties.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
Identification, classifications, and absolute properties of 773 eclipsing binaries found in the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey
In recent years, we have witnessed an explosion of photometric time-series data, collected for the purpose of finding a small number of rare sources, such as transiting extrasolar planets and gravitational microlenses. Once combed, these data are often set aside, and are not further searched for the many other variable sources that they undoubtedly contain. To this end, we describe a pipeline that is designed to systematically analyze such data, while requiring minimal user interaction. We ran our pipeline on a subset of the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey dataset, and used it to identify and model 773 eclipsing binary systems. For each system we conducted a joint analysis of its light curve, colors, and theoretical isochrones. This analysis provided us with estimates of the binary's absolute physical properties, including the masses and ages of their stellar components, as well as their physical separations and distances. We identified three types of eclipsing binaries that are of particular interest and merit further observations. The first category includes 11 low-mass candidates, which may assist current efforts to explain the discrepancies between the observation and the models of stars at the bottom of the main sequence. The other two categories include 34 binaries with eccentric orbits, and 20 binaries with abnormal light curves. Finally, this uniform catalog enabled us to identify a number of relations that provide further constraints on binary population models and tidal circularization theory
Detection of a Temperature Inversion in the Broadband Infrared Emission Spectrum of TrES-4
We estimate the strength of the bandpass-integrated thermal emission from the
extrasolar planet TrES-4 at 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8.0 micron using the Infrared
Array Camera (IRAC) on the Spitzer Space Telescope. We find relative eclipse
depths of 0.137 +/- 0.011%, 0.148 +/- 0.016%, 0.261 +/- 0.059%, and 0.318 +/-
0.044% in these four bandpasses, respectively. We also place a 2 sigma upper
limit of 0.37% on the depth of the secondary eclipse in the 16 micron IRS
peak-up array. These eclipse depths reveal that TrES-4 has an emission spectrum
similar to that of HD 209458b, which requires the presence of water emission
bands created by an thermal inversion layer high in the atmosphere in order to
explain the observed features. TrES-4 receives more radiation from its star
than HD 209458b and has a correspondingly higher effective temperature,
therefore the presence of a temperature inversion in this planet's atmosphere
lends support to the idea that inversions might be correlated with the
irradiance received by the planet. We find no evidence for any offset in the
timing of the secondary eclipse, and place a 3 sigma upper limit of
|ecos(omega)|<0.0058 where e is the planet's orbital eccentricity and omega is
the argument of pericenter. From this we conclude that tidal heating from
ongoing orbital circulatization is unlikely to be the explanation for TrES-4's
inflated radius.Comment: 10 pages in emulateapj format, 7 figures (some in color), accepted
for publication in Ap
Improving Stellar and Planetary Parameters of Transiting Planet Systems: The Case of TrES-2
We report on a spectroscopic determination of the atmospheric parameters and chemical abundance of the parent star of the recently discovered transiting planet TrES-2. A detailed LTE analysis of a set of Fe I and Fe II lines from our Keck spectra yields T_(eff) = 5850 ± 50 K, log g = 4.4 ± 0.1, and [Fe/H] = -0.15 ± 0.10. Several independent checks (e.g., additional spectroscopy, line-depth ratios) confirm the reliability of our spectroscopic T_(eff) estimate. The mass and radius of the star, needed to determine the properties of the planet, are traditionally inferred by comparison with stellar evolution models using T_(eff) and some measure of the stellar luminosity, such as the spectroscopic surface gravity. We apply here a new method in which we use instead of log g the normalized separation a/R_* (related to the stellar density), directly measurabele from the light curves of transiting planets with much greater precision. With the a/R_* value from the light-curve analysis of Holman and coworkers and our T_(eff) estimate, we obtain M_* = 0.980 ± 0.062 M_â and R_* = 1.000^(+0.036)_(-0.033) R_â, and an evolutionary age of 5.1^(+2.7)_(-2.3) Gyr, in good agreement with other constraints (Ca II H and K line cores, lithium abundance, and rotation). The new stellar parameters yield improved values for the planetary mass and radius of M_p = 1.198 ± 0.053 M_J and R_p = 1.220^(+0.045)_(-0.042) R_J, confirming that TrES-2 is the most massive among the currently known nearby (d âČ 300 pc) transiting hot Jupiters. The surface gravity of the planet, log g_p = 3.299 ± 0.016, can be derived independently of the knowledge of the stellar parameters (i.e., directly from observations), and with a very high precision rivaling that of the best known double-lined eclipsing binaries
TrES-1: The Transiting Planet of a Bright K0V Star
We report the detection of a transiting Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a
relatively bright (V=11.79) K0V star. We detected the transit light-curve
signature in the course of the TrES multi-site transiting planet survey, and
confirmed the planetary nature of the companion via multicolor photometry and
precise radial velocity measurements. We designate the planet TrES-1; its
inferred mass is 0.75 +/- 0.07 Jupiter masses, its radius is 1.08 (+0.18/-0.04)
Jupiter radii, and its orbital period is 3.030065 +/- 0.000008 days. This
planet has an orbital period similar to that of HD 209458b, but about twice as
long as those of the OGLE transiting planets. Its mass is indistinguishable
from that of HD 209458b, but its radius is significantly smaller and fits the
theoretical models without the need for an additional source of heat deep in
the atmosphere, as has been invoked by some investigators for HD 209458b.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. To be published in Astrophysical
Journal Letters. Ascii data in
http://www.hao.ucar.edu/public/research/stare/data/TrES1.as
T-Lyr1-17236 : a long-period low-mass eclipsing binary
We describe the discovery of a 0.68+0.52 Mâ eclipsing binary (EB) with an 8.4 day orbital period, found through a systematic search of 10 fields of the Trans-atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES). Such long-period low-mass EBs constitute critical test cases for resolving the long-standing discrepancy between the theoretical and observational mass-radius relations at the bottom of the main sequence. It has been suggested that this discrepancy may be related to strong stellar magnetic fields, which are not properly accounted for in current theoretical models. All previously well-characterized low-mass main-sequence EBs have periods of a few days or less, and their components are therefore expected to be rotating rapidly as a result of tidal synchronization, thus generating strong magnetic fields. In contrast, the binary system described here has a period that is more than 3 times longer than previously characterized low-mass main-sequence EBs, and its components rotate relatively slowly. It is therefore expected to have a weaker magnetic field and to better match the assumptions of theoretical stellar models. Our follow-up observations of this EB yield preliminary stellar properties that suggest it is indeed consistent with current models. If further observations confirm a low level of activity in this system, these determinations would provide support for the hypothesis that the mass-radius discrepancy is at least partly due to magnetic activity
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