477 research outputs found
Transit Detection in the MEarth Survey of Nearby M Dwarfs: Bridging the Clean-First, Search-Later Divide
In the effort to characterize the masses, radii, and atmospheres of
potentially habitable exoplanets, there is an urgent need to find examples of
such planets transiting nearby M dwarfs. The MEarth Project is an ongoing
effort to do so, as a ground-based photometric survey designed to detect
exoplanets as small as 2 Earth radii transiting mid-to-late M dwarfs within 33
pc of the Sun. Unfortunately, identifying transits of such planets in
photometric monitoring is complicated both by the intrinsic stellar variability
that is common among these stars and by the nocturnal cadence, atmospheric
variations, and instrumental systematics that often plague Earth-bound
observatories. Here we summarize the properties of MEarth data gathered so far,
and we present a new framework to detect shallow exoplanet transits in wiggly
and irregularly-spaced light curves. In contrast to previous methods that clean
trends from light curves before searching for transits, this framework assesses
the significance of individual transits simultaneously while modeling
variability, systematics, and the photometric quality of individual nights. Our
Method for Including Starspots and Systematics in the Marginalized Probability
of a Lone Eclipse (MISS MarPLE) uses a computationally efficient semi-Bayesian
approach to explore the vast probability space spanned by the many parameters
of this model, naturally incorporating the uncertainties in these parameters
into its evaluation of candidate events. We show how to combine individual
transits processed by MISS MarPLE into periodic transiting planet candidates
and compare our results to the popular Box-fitting Least Squares (BLS) method
with simulations. By applying MISS MarPLE to observations from the MEarth
Project, we demonstrate the utility of this framework for robustly assessing
the false alarm probability of transit signals in real data. [slightly
abridged]Comment: accepted to the Astronomical Journal, 21 pages, 12 figure
Is the Sgr dSph a dark matter dominated system?
We study the evolution of possible progenitors of Sgr dSph}using several
numerical N-body simulations of different dwarf spheroidal galaxies both with
and without dark matter, as they orbit the Milky Way. The barionic and dark
components of the dwarfs were made obeying a Plummer and NFW potentials of one
million particles respectively. The Milky Way was modeled like a tree-component
rigid potential and the simulations were performed using a modified Gadget-2
code. We found that none of the simulated galaxies without dark matter
reproduced the physical properties observed in Sgr dSph, suggesting that, at
the beginning of its evolution, Sgr dSph might have been immersed in a dark
matter halo.
The simulations of progenitors immersed in dark matter halos suggest that Sgr
dSph at its beginning might have been an extended system, i.e. its Plummer
radius could have had a value approximated to 1.2 kpc or higher; furthermore,
this galaxy could have been immersed in a dark halo with a mass higher than
10^8 solar masses. These results are important for the construction of a model
of the formation of Sgr dSph.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, New Astronomy - accepte
Prolonged myoclonus after a single bolus dose of propofol
Propofol is a commonly used anaesthetic agent and is rarely associated with seizure-like phenomena. This case report presents a young woman with seizure-like phenomena lasting more than 4 weeks after a single dose of propofol. The underlying pathophysiology of this condition is poorly understood but a psychological component is possible in this case. © 2009 The Authors.postprin
Was the Progenitor of the Sagittarius Stream a Disc Galaxy?
We use N-body simulations to explore the possibility that the Sagittarius
(Sgr) dwarf galaxy was originally a late-type, rotating disc galaxy, rather
than a non-rotating, pressure-supported dwarf spheroidal galaxy, as previously
thought. We find that bifurcations in the leading tail of the Sgr stream,
similar to those detected by the SDSS survey, naturally arise in models where
the Sgr disc is misaligned with respect to the orbital plane. Moreover, we show
that the internal rotation of the progenitor may strongly alter the location of
the leading tail projected on the sky, and thus affect the constraints on the
shape of the Milky Way dark matter halo that may be derived from modelling the
Sgr stream. Our models provide a clear, easily-tested prediction: although
tidal mass stripping removes a large fraction of the original angular momentum
in the progenitor dwarf galaxy, the remnant core should still rotate with a
velocity amplitude ~20 km/s that could be readily detected in future,
wide-field kinematic surveys of the Sgr dwarf.Comment: Letter accepted by MNRAS. N-body model animations can be downloaded
from http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jorpega/files/sgr
Breaking the Smallsat Barriers to Sub-50cm Imaging
New cutting-edge imaging sensors can now reduce instrument size and mass, leading to mission cost savings, and bring sub-50cm imaging capability into the realm of small satellites. Whilst aperture is essential to achieving resolution, half-pixel shifted sensor architectures decouple achievable Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) from the native ground projected pixel. This facilitates the deployment of Very High Resolution (VHR) small satellite constellations featuring improved Signal-to-Noise performance and increased area collection rates compared to push-frame systems.
A fundamental limitation to the theoretical performance of an optical system is imposed by its aperture diameter; hence, for a given aperture, the aim is to maximize the information content resolved up to this limit. This is achieved by minimizing losses caused by aberrations in the optical system and enhancing platform stability on-orbit. Further information is lost due to aliasing at higher spatial frequencies; however, the recovery of such information is unlocked through the novel sensor technology and processing techniques proposed.
Funded under the European Space Agency (ESA) “Investing in Industrial Innovation” (InCubed) program, this paper reports on the build and verification campaign of a sub-50cm capable instrument Proto-Flight Model (PFM), the beneficial properties of half-pixel offset sensors, and the platform supporting such a payload
The LuckyCam Survey for Very Low Mass Binaries II: 13 new M4.5-M6.0 Binaries
We present results from a high-angular-resolution survey of 78 very low mass
(VLM) binary systems with 6.0 = 0.15
arcsec/yr. 21 VLM binaries were detected, 13 of them new discoveries. The new
binary systems range in separation between 0.18 arcsec and 1.3 arcsec. The
distance-corrected binary fraction is 13.5% (+6.5%/-4%), in agreement with
previous results. 9 of the new binary systems have orbital radii > 10 AU,
including a new wide VLM binary with 27 AU projected orbital separation. One of
the new systems forms two components of a 2300 AU separation triple system. We
find that the orbital radius distribution of the binaries with V-K < 6.5 in
this survey appears to be different from that of redder (lower-mass) objects,
suggesting a possible rapid change in the orbital radius distribution at around
the M5 spectral type. The target sample was also selected to investigate X-ray
activity among VLM binaries. There is no detectable correlation between excess
X-Ray emission and the frequency and binary properties of the VLM systems.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to MNRA
The Factory and The Beehive I. Rotation Periods For Low-Mass Stars in Praesepe
Stellar rotation periods measured from single-age populations are critical
for investigating how stellar angular momentum content evolves over time, how
that evolution depends on mass, and how rotation influences the stellar dynamo
and the magnetically heated chromosphere and corona. We report rotation periods
for 40 late-K to mid-M stars members of the nearby, rich, intermediate-age
(~600 Myr) open cluster Praesepe. These rotation periods were derived from ~200
observations taken by the Palomar Transient Factory of four cluster fields from
2010 February to May. Our measurements indicate that Praesepe's mass-period
relation transitions from a well-defined singular relation to a more scattered
distribution of both fast and slow rotators at ~0.6 Msun. The location of this
transition is broadly consistent with expectations based on observations of
younger clusters and the assumption that stellar-spin down is the dominant
mechanism influencing angular momentum evolution at 600 Myr. However, a
comparison to data recently published for the Hyades, assumed to be coeval to
Praesepe, indicates that the divergence from a singular mass-period relation
occurs at different characteristic masses, strengthening the finding that
Praesepe is the younger of the two clusters. We also use previously published
relations describing the evolution of rotation periods as a function of color
and mass to evolve the sample of Praesepe periods in time. Comparing the
resulting predictions to periods measured in M35 and NGC 2516 (~150 Myr) and
for kinematically selected young and old field star populations suggests that
stellar spin-down may progress more slowly than described by these relations.Comment: To appear in the ApJ. 18 pages, 12 figures; version with higher
resolution figures available at
http://www.astro.columbia.edu/~marcel/papers/praesepe.pdf. Paper title
inspired by local news; see http://tinyurl.com/redhone
Robo-AO M-dwarf Multiplicity Survey: Catalog
We analyze observations from Robo-AO's field M dwarf survey taken on the 2.1 m Kitt Peak telescope and perform a multiplicity comparison with Gaia DR2. Through its laser-guided, automated system, the Robo-AO instrument has yielded the largest adaptive optics M dwarf multiplicity survey to date. After developing an interface to visually identify and locate stellar companions, we selected 11 low-significance Robo-AO detections for follow-up on the Keck II telescope using NIRC2. In the Robo-AO survey we find 553 candidate companions within 4'' around 534 stars out of 5566 unique targets, most of which are new discoveries. Using a position cross-match with DR2 on all targets, we assess the binary recoverability of Gaia DR2 and compare the properties of multiples resolved by both Robo-AO and Gaia. The catalog of nearby M dwarf systems and their basic properties presented here can assist other surveys which observe these stars, such as the NASA TESS mission
Estimate of dark halo ellipticity by lensing flexion
Aims. The predictions of the ellipticity of the dark matter halos from models
of structure formation are notoriously difficult to test with observations. A
direct measurement would give important constraints on the formation of
galaxies, and its effect on the dark matter distribution in their halos. Here
we show that galaxy-galaxy flexion provides a direct and potentially powerful
method for determining the ellipticity of (an ensemble of) elliptical lenses.
Methods. We decompose the spin-1 flexion into a radial and a tangential
component. Using the ratio of tangential-to- radial flexion, which is
independent of the radial mass profile, the mass ellipticity can be estimated.
Results. An estimator for the ellipticity of the mass distribution is derived
and tested with simulations. We show that the estimator is slightly biased. We
quantify this bias, and provide a method to reduce it. Furthermore, a
parametric fitting of the flexion ratio and orientation provides another
estimate for the dark halo ellipticity, which is more accurate for individual
lenses Overall, galaxy-galaxy flexion appears as a powerful tool for
constraining the ellipticity of mass distributions.Comment: 6 pages,5 figures, submitted to AA, comments welcom
Searching for transits in the Wide Field Camera Transit Survey with difference-imaging light curves
The Wide Field Camera Transit Survey is a pioneer program aiming at for searching extra-solar planets in the near-infrared. The images from the survey are processed by a data reduction pipeline, which uses aperture photometry to construct the light curves. We produce an alternative set of light curves using the difference-imaging method for the most complete field in the survey and carry out a quantitative comparison between the photometric precision achieved with both methods. The results show that differencephotometry light curves present an important improvement for stars with J > 16. We report an implementation on the box-fitting transit detection algorithm, which performs a trapezoid-fit to the folded light curve, providing more accurate results than the boxfitting model. We describe and optimize a set of selection criteria to search for transit candidates, including the V-shape parameter calculated by our detection algorithm. The optimized selection criteria are applied to the aperture photometry and difference-imaging light curves, resulting in the automatic detection of the best 200 transit candidates from a sample of ~475 000 sources. We carry out a detailed analysis in the 18 best detections and classify them as transiting planet and eclipsing binary candidates. We present one planet candidate orbiting a late G-type star. No planet candidate around M-stars has been found, confirming the null detection hypothesis and upper limits on the occurrence rate of short-period giant planets around M-dwarfs presented in a prior study. We extend the search for transiting planets to stars with J ≤ 18, which enables us to set a stricter upper limit of 1.1%. Furthermore, we present the detection of five faint extremely-short period eclipsing binaries and three M-dwarf/M-dwarf binary candidates. The detections demonstrate the benefits of using the difference-imaging light curves, especially when going to fainter magnitudes.Peer reviewe
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