Caustic Structures and Detectability of Circumbinary Planets in Microlensing

Recent discoveries of circumbinary planets in Kepler data show that there is a viable channel of planet formation around binary main sequence stars. Motivated by these discoveries, we have investigated the caustic structures and detectability of circumbinary planets in microlensing events. We have produced a suite of animations of caustics as a function of the projected separation and angle of the binary host to efficiently explore caustic structures over the entire circumbinary parameter space. Aided by these animations, we have derived a semi-empirical analytic expression for the location of planetary caustics, which are displaced in circumbinary lenses relative to those of planets with a single host. We have used this expression to show that the dominant source of caustic motion will be due to the planet's orbital motion and not that of the binary star. Finally, we estimate the fraction of circumbinary microlensing events that are recognizable as such to be significant (5-50 percent) for binary projected separations in the range 0.1-0.5 in units of Einstein radii.Comment: 15 pages, 1 table, 18 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Astrophysical Insights into Radial Velocity Jitter from an Analysis of 600 Planet-search Stars

Radial velocity (RV) detection of planets is hampered by astrophysical processes on the surfaces of stars that induce a stochastic signal, or "jitter," which can drown out or even mimic planetary signals. Here, we empirically and carefully measure the RV jitter of more than 600 stars from the California Planet Search sample on a star by star basis. As part of this process, we explore the activity–RV correlation of stellar cycles and include appendices listing every ostensibly companion-induced signal we removed and every activity cycle we noted. We then use precise stellar properties from Brewer et al. to separate the sample into bins of stellar mass and examine trends with activity and with evolutionary state. We find that RV jitter tracks stellar evolution and that in general, stars evolve through different stages of RV jitter: the jitter in younger stars is driven by magnetic activity, while the jitter in older stars is convectively driven and dominated by granulation and oscillations. We identify the "jitter minimum"—where activity-driven and convectively driven jitter have similar amplitudes—for stars between 0.7 and 1.7 M⊙ and find that more-massive stars reach this jitter minimum later in their lifetime, in the subgiant or even giant phases. Finally, we comment on how these results can inform future RV efforts, from prioritization of follow-up targets from transit surveys like TESS to target selection of future RV surveys

Astrophysical Insights into Radial Velocity Jitter from an Analysis of 600 Planet-search Stars

Radial velocity (RV) detection of planets is hampered by astrophysical processes on the surfaces of stars that induce a stochastic signal, or "jitter," which can drown out or even mimic planetary signals. Here, we empirically and carefully measure the RV jitter of more than 600 stars from the California Planet Search sample on a star by star basis. As part of this process, we explore the activity–RV correlation of stellar cycles and include appendices listing every ostensibly companion-induced signal we removed and every activity cycle we noted. We then use precise stellar properties from Brewer et al. to separate the sample into bins of stellar mass and examine trends with activity and with evolutionary state. We find that RV jitter tracks stellar evolution and that in general, stars evolve through different stages of RV jitter: the jitter in younger stars is driven by magnetic activity, while the jitter in older stars is convectively driven and dominated by granulation and oscillations. We identify the "jitter minimum"—where activity-driven and convectively driven jitter have similar amplitudes—for stars between 0.7 and 1.7 M⊙ and find that more-massive stars reach this jitter minimum later in their lifetime, in the subgiant or even giant phases. Finally, we comment on how these results can inform future RV efforts, from prioritization of follow-up targets from transit surveys like TESS to target selection of future RV surveys

Retired A Stars and Their Companions VIII: 15 New Planetary Signals Around Subgiants and Transit Parameters for California Planet Search Planets with Subgiant Hosts

We present the discovery of seven new planets and eight planet candidates around subgiant stars, as additions to the known sample of planets around "retired A stars." Among these are the possible first three-planet systems around subgiant stars, HD 163607 and HD 4917. Additionally, we present calculations of possible transit times, durations, depths, and probabilities for all known planets around subgiant (3 9%

Retired A Stars and Their Companions VIII: 15 New Planetary Signals Around Subgiants and Transit Parameters for California Planet Search Planets with Subgiant Hosts

We present the discovery of seven new planets and eight planet candidates around subgiant stars, as additions to the known sample of planets around "retired A stars." Among these are the possible first three-planet systems around subgiant stars, HD 163607 and HD 4917. Additionally, we present calculations of possible transit times, durations, depths, and probabilities for all known planets around subgiant (3 9%

Detection of p-mode Oscillations in HD 35833 with NEID and TESS

We report the results of observations of p-mode oscillations in the G0 subgiant star HD 35833 in both radial velocities and photometry with NEID and TESS, respectively. We achieve separate, robust detections of the oscillation signal with both instruments (radial velocity amplitude $A_{\rm RV}=1.11\pm0.09$ m s$^{-1}$, photometric amplitude $A_{\rm phot}=6.42\pm0.60$ ppm, frequency of maximum power $\nu_{\rm max} = 595.71\pm17.28$ $\mu$Hz, and mode spacing $\Delta \nu = 36.65\pm0.96$ $\mu$Hz) as well as a non-detection in a TESS sector concurrent with the NEID observations. These data shed light on our ability to mitigate the correlated noise impact of oscillations with radial velocities alone, and on the robustness of commonly used asteroseismic scaling relations. The NEID data are used to validate models for the attenuation of oscillation signals for exposure times $t<\nu_{\rm max}^{-1}$, and we compare our results to predictions from theoretical scaling relations and find that the observed amplitudes are weaker than expected by $>4\sigma$, hinting at gaps in the underlying physical models.Comment: 19 Pages, 14 Figures, Appendi

Impact of Correlated Noise on the Mass Precision of Earth-analog Planets in Radial Velocity Surveys

Characterizing the masses and orbits of near-Earth-mass planets is crucial for interpreting observations from future direct imaging missions (e.g., HabEx, LUVOIR). Therefore, the Exoplanet Science Strategy report recommended further research so future extremely precise radial velocity surveys could contribute to the discovery and/or characterization of near-Earth-mass planets in the habitable zones of nearby stars prior to the launch of these future imaging missions. Newman et al. (2023) simulated such 10 yr surveys under various telescope architectures, demonstrating they can precisely measure the masses of potentially habitable Earth-mass planets in the absence of stellar variability. Here, we investigate the effect of stellar variability on the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the planet mass measurements in these simulations. We find that correlated noise due to active regions has the largest effect on the observed mass S/N, reducing the S/N by a factor of ∼5.5 relative to the no-variability scenario; granulation reduces by a factor of ∼3, while p-mode oscillations has little impact on the proposed survey strategies. We show that in the presence of correlated noise, 5 cm s−1 instrumental precision offers little improvement over 10 cm s−1 precision, highlighting the need to mitigate astrophysical variability. With our noise models, extending the survey to 15 yr doubles the number of Earth-analogs with mass S/N > 10, and reaching this threshold for any Earth-analog orbiting a star >0.76 M ⊙ in a 10 yr survey would require an increase in the number of observations per star from that in Newman et al. (2023)