The Berlin Exoplanet Search Telescope II. Catalog of Variable Stars. I. Characterization of Three Southern Target Fields

A photometric survey of three Southern target fields with BEST II yielded the detection of 2,406 previously unknown variable stars and an additional 617 stars with suspected variability. This study presents a catalog including their coordinates, magnitudes, light curves, ephemerides, amplitudes, and type of variability. In addition, the variability of 17 known objects is confirmed, thus validating the results. The catalog contains a number of known and new variables that are of interest for further astrophysical investigations, in order to, e.g., search for additional bodies in eclipsing binary systems, or to test stellar interior models. Altogether, 209,070 stars were monitored with BEST II during a total of 128 nights in 2009/2010. The overall variability fraction of 1.2-1.5% in these target fields is well comparable to similar ground-based photometric surveys. Within the main magnitude range of $R\in\left[11,17\right]$, we identify 0.67(3)% of all stars to be eclipsing binaries, which indicates a completeness of about one third for this particular type in comparison to space surveys.Comment: accepted to A

Variability survey in the CoRoT SRa01 field: Implications of eclipsing binary distribution on cluster formation in NGC 2264

Time-series photometry of the CoRoT field SRa01 was carried out with the Berlin Exoplanet Search Telescope II (BEST II) in 2008/2009. A total of 1,161 variable stars were detected, of which 241 were previously known and 920 are newly found. Several new, variable young stellar objects have been discovered. The study of the spatial distribution of eclipsing binaries revealed the higher relative frequency of Algols toward the center of the young open cluster NGC 2264. In general Algol frequency obeys an isotropic distribution of their angular momentum vectors, except inside the cluster, where a specific orientation of the inclinations is the case. We suggest that we see the orbital plane of the binaries almost edge-on.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Transition to siblinghood causes a substantial and long-lasting increase in urinary cortisol levels in wild bonobos

In animals with slow ontogeny and long-term maternal investment, immatures are likely to experience the birth of a younger sibling before reaching maturity. In these species, the birth of a sibling marks a major event in an offspring's early life, as the older siblings experience a decrease in maternal support. The transition to siblinghood (TTS) is often considered to be stressful for the older offspring, but physiological evidence is lacking. To explore the TTS in wild bonobos, we investigated physiological changes in urinary cortisol (stress response), neopterin (cell-mediated immunity), and total triiodothyronine (T3, metabolic rate), as well as changes in behaviors that reflect the mother-offspring relationship. Following a sibling's birth, urinary cortisol levels of the older offspring increased fivefold, independent of their age, and remained elevated for seven months. The cortisol level increase was associated with declining neopterin levels, however T3 levels and behavioral measures did not change. Our results indicate that the TTS is accompanied by elevated cortisol levels and that this change does not coincide with nutritional weaning and attainment of physical independence. Our results suggest that bonobos and humans experience TTS in similar ways and that this developmental event may have emerged in the last common ancestor

Unpeeling the layers of language: Bonobos and chimpanzees engage in cooperative turn-taking sequences

Human language is a fundamentally cooperative enterprise, embodying fast-paced and extended social interactions. It has been suggested that it evolved as part of a larger adaptation of humans’ species-unique forms of cooperation. Although our closest living relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees, show general cooperative abilities, their communicative interactions seem to lack the cooperative nature of human conversation. Here, we revisited this claim by conducting the first systematic comparison of communicative interactions in mother-infant dyads living in two different communities of bonobos (LuiKotale, DRC; Wamba, DRC) and chimpanzees (Taï South, Côte d’Ivoire; Kanyawara, Uganda) in the wild. Focusing on the communicative function of joint-travel-initiation, we applied parameters of conversation analysis to gestural exchanges between mothers and infants. Results showed that communicative exchanges in both species resemble cooperative turn-taking sequences in human conversation. While bonobos consistently addressed the recipient via gaze before signal initiation and used so-called overlapping responses, chimpanzees engaged in more extended negotiations, involving frequent response waiting and gestural sequences. Our results thus strengthen the hypothesis that interactional intelligence paved the way to the cooperative endeavour of human language and suggest that social matrices highly impact upon communication styles

Fishing for iodine: What aquatic foraging by bonobos tells us about human evolution

Background: Expansion of brain tissue and development of advanced cognitive skills are characteristic traits of human evolution. Their emergence has been causally linked to the intake of nutrients that promote brain development and iodine is considered a critical resource. Rich sources of iodine exist in coastal areas and evolutionary scenarios associate the progressive development of brain size and cognitive skills to such landscapes. This raises the question of how early hominins living in continental areas could have met their iodine requirements. One way to explore this question is to use information from hominoid primates as a proxy for the nutritional ecology of early hominins. Bonobos are particularly interesting in this context as they are restricted to the central part of the Congo basin, an area considered to be iodine deficient based on human standards. Methods: Pooled samples of fruit, terrestrial and aquatic herbs were used to assess mineral content with an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer. Iodine content was measured with the catalytic technique of Sandell-Kolthoff and two separate inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry methods. Results: Nutritional analyses revealed that the mineral content of aquatic herbs is higher than in other plant foods. Moreover, two species of aquatic herbs consumed by bonobos contain iodine concentrations that are almost equivalent to marine algae. Conclusions: These data challenge the general notion that the Congo basin is iodine deficient and demonstrate that its lowland forest offers natural sources of iodine in concentrations high enough to prevent iodine deficiency in hominoids and humans

Periodic variable stars in CoRoT field LRa02 observed with BEST II

The Berlin Exoplanet Search Telescope II (BEST II) is a small wide field-of-view photometric survey telescope system located at the Observatorio Cerro Armazones, Chile. The high duty cycle combined with excellent observing conditions and millimagnitude photometric precision makes this instrument suitable for ground based support observations for the CoRoT space mission. Photometric data of the CoRoT LRa02 target field collected between November 2008 and March 2009 were analysed for stellar variability. The presented results will help in the future analysis of the CoRoT data, particularly in additional science programs related to variable stars. BEST II observes selected CoRoT target fields ahead of the space mission. The photometric data acquired are searched for stellar variability, periodic variable stars are identified with time series analysis of the obtained stellar light curves. We obtained the light curves of 104335 stars in the CoRoT LRa02 field over 41 nights. Variability was detected in light curves of 3726 stars of which 350 showed a regular period. These stars are, with the exception of 5 previously known variable stars, new discoveries.Comment: The figures with light curves can be find in the A&A journal as online onl

ASTEP South: An Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets around the celestial South pole

ASTEP South is the first phase of the ASTEP project (Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets). The instrument is a fixed 10 cm refractor with a 4kx4k CCD camera in a thermalized box, pointing continuously a 3.88 degree x 3.88 degree field of view centered on the celestial South pole. ASTEP South became fully functional in June 2008 and obtained 1592 hours of data during the 2008 Antarctic winter. The data are of good quality but the analysis has to account for changes in the point spread function due to rapid ground seeing variations and instrumental effects. The pointing direction is stable within 10 arcseconds on a daily timescale and drifts by only 34 arcseconds in 50 days. A truly continuous photometry of bright stars is possible in June (the noon sky background peaks at a magnitude R=15 arcsec-2 on June 22), but becomes challenging in July (the noon sky background magnitude is R=12.5 arcsec?2 on July 20). The weather conditions are estimated from the number of stars detected in the field. For the 2008 winter, the statistics are between 56.3 % and 68.4 % of excellent weather, 17.9 % to 30 % of veiled weather and 13.7 % of bad weather. Using these results in a probabilistic analysis of transit detection, we show that the detection efficiency of transiting exoplanets in one given field is improved at Dome C compared to a temperate site such as La Silla. For example we estimate that a year-long campaign of 10 cm refractor could reach an efficiency of 69 % at Dome C versus 45 % at La Silla for detecting 2-day period giant planets around target stars from magnitude 10 to 15. This shows the high potential of Dome C for photometry and future planet discoveries. [Short abstract

The secondary eclipses of WASP-19b as seen by the ASTEP 400 telescope from Antarctica

The ASTEP (Antarctica Search for Transiting ExoPlanets) program was originally aimed at probing the quality of the Dome C, Antarctica for the discovery and characterization of exoplanets by photometry. In the first year of operation of the 40 cm ASTEP 400 telescope (austral winter 2010), we targeted the known transiting planet WASP-19b in order to try to detect its secondary transits in the visible. This is made possible by the excellent sub-millimagnitude precision of the binned data. The WASP-19 system was observed during 24 nights in May 2010. The photometric variability level due to starspots is about 1.8% (peak-to-peak), in line with the SuperWASP data from 2007 (1.4%) and larger than in 2008 (0.07%). We find a rotation period of WASP-19 of 10.7 +/- 0.5 days, in agreement with the SuperWASP determination of 10.5 +/- 0.2 days. Theoretical models show that this can only be explained if tidal dissipation in the star is weak, i.e. the tidal dissipation factor Q'star > 3.10^7. Separately, we find evidence for a secondary eclipse of depth 390 +/- 190 ppm with a 2.0 sigma significance, a phase consistent with a circular orbit and a 3% false positive probability. Given the wavelength range of the observations (420 to 950 nm), the secondary transit depth translates into a day side brightness temperature of 2690(-220/+150) K, in line with measurements in the z' and K bands. The day side emission observed in the visible could be due either to thermal emission of an extremely hot day side with very little redistribution of heat to the night side, or to direct reflection of stellar light with a maximum geometrical albedo Ag=0.27 +/- 0.13. We also report a low-frequency oscillation well in phase at the planet orbital period, but with a lower-limit amplitude that could not be attributed to the planet phase alone, and possibly contaminated with residual lightcurve trends.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 13 pages, 13 figure

Derivative based global sensitivity measures

The method of derivative based global sensitivity measures (DGSM) has recently become popular among practitioners. It has a strong link with the Morris screening method and Sobol' sensitivity indices and has several advantages over them. DGSM are very easy to implement and evaluate numerically. The computational time required for numerical evaluation of DGSM is generally much lower than that for estimation of Sobol' sensitivity indices. This paper presents a survey of recent advances in DGSM concerning lower and upper bounds on the values of Sobol' total sensitivity indices $S\_{i}^{tot}$. Using these bounds it is possible in most cases to get a good practical estimation of the values of $S\_{i}^{tot}$. Several examples are used to illustrate an application of DGSM