Formation, evolution and multiplicity of brown dwarfs and giant exoplanets

This proceeding summarises the talk of the awardee of the Spanish Astronomical Society award to the the best Spanish thesis in Astronomy and Astrophysics in the two-year period 2006-2007. The thesis required a tremendous observational effort and covered many different topics related to brown dwarfs and exoplanets, such as the study of the mass function in the substellar domain of the young sigma Orionis cluster down to a few Jupiter masses, the relation between the cluster stellar and substellar populations, the accretion discs in cluster brown dwarfs, the frequency of very low-mass companions to nearby young stars at intermediate and wide separations, or the detectability of Earth-like planets in habitable zones around ultracool (L- and T-type) dwarfs in the solar neighbourhood.Comment: "Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics V", Proceedings of the VIII Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA) held in Santander, 7-11 July, 2008. Edited by J. Gorgas, L. J. Goicoechea, J. I. Gonzalez-Serrano, J. M. Diego. Invited oral contribution to plenary sessio

Interaction of free-floating planets with a star-planet pair

The recent discovery of free-floating planets and their theoretical interpretation as celestial bodies, either condensed independently or ejected from parent stars in tight clusters, introduced an intriguing possibility. Namely, that some exoplanets are not condensed from the protoplanetary disk of their parent star. In this novel scenario a free-floating planet interacts with an already existing planetary system, created in a tight cluster, and is captured as a new planet. In the present work we study this interaction process by integrating trajectories of planet-sized bodies, which encounter a binary system consisting of a Jupiter-sized planet revolving around a Sun-like star. To simplify the problem we assume coplanar orbits for the bound and the free-floating planet and an initially parabolic orbit for the free-floating planet. By calculating the uncertainty exponent, a quantity that measures the dependence of the final state of the system on small changes of the initial conditions, we show that the interaction process is a fractal classical scattering. The uncertainty exponent is in the range (0.2-0.3) and is a decreasing function of time. In this way we see that the statistical approach we follow to tackle the problem is justified. The possible final outcomes of this interaction are only four, namely flyby, planet exchange, capture or disruption. We give the probability of each outcome as a function of the incoming planet's mass. We find that the probability of exchange or capture (in prograde as well as retrograde orbits and for very long times) is non-negligible, a fact that might explain the possible future observations of planetary systems with orbits that are either retrograde or tight and highly eccentric.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figure

HORuS transmission spectroscopy and revised planetary parameters of KELT-7 b

We report on the high-resolution spectroscopic observations of two planetary transits of the hot Jupiter KELT-7b (Mp = 1.28 +/- 0.17Mjup, Teq=2028 K) observed with the High Optical Resolution Spectrograph (HORuS) mounted on the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). A new set of stellar parameters are obtained for the rapidly rotating parent star from the analysis of the spectra. Using the newly derived stellar mass and radius, and the planetary transit data of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) together with the HORuS velocities and the photometric and spectroscopic data available in the literature, we update and improve the ephemeris of KELT-7b. Our results indicate that KELT-7 has an angle Lamda = -10.55 +/- 0.27 deg between the sky projections of the star’s spin axis and the planet’s orbital axis. By combining this angle and our newly derived stellar rotation period of 1.38 +/- 0.05 d, we obtained a 3D obliquity Psi = 12.4 +/- 11.7 deg (or 167.6 deg), thus reinforcing that KELT-7 is a well-aligned planetary system. We search for the presence of Halfa, Li i, Na i, Mg i, and Ca ii features in the transmission spectrum of KELT-7b but we are only able to determine upper limits of 0.08–1.4 % on their presence after accounting for the contribution of the stellar variability to the extracted planetary spectrum. We also discuss the impact of stellar variability in the planetary data. Our results reinforce the importance of monitoring the parent star when performing high-resolution transmission spectroscopy of the planetary atmosphere in the presence of stellar activity

Silicon in the dayside atmospheres of two ultra-hot Jupiters

Stars and planetary system

Detection of iron emission lines and a temperature inversion on the dayside of the ultra-hot Jupiter KELT-20b

Stars and planetary system

Into the storm: diving into the winds of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-76 b with HARPS and ESPRESSO

Stars and planetary system

A He I upper atmosphere around the warm Neptune GJ 3470 b

Stars and planetary system

The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs: different roads to radii and masses of the target stars

Aims. We determine the radii and masses of 293 nearby, bright M dwarfs of the CARMENES survey. This is the first time that such a large and homogeneous high-resolution (R > 80, 000) spectroscopic survey has been used to derive these fundamental stellar parameters. Methods. We derived the radii using Stefan-Boltzmann’s law. We obtained the required effective temperatures T_(eff) from a spectral analysis and we obtained the required luminosities L from integrated broadband photometry together with the Gaia DR2 parallaxes. The mass was then determined using a mass-radius relation that we derived from eclipsing binaries known in the literature. We compared this method with three other methods: (1) We calculated the mass from the radius and the surface gravity log g, which was obtained from the same spectral analysis as T_(eff). (2) We used a widely used infrared mass-magnitude relation. (3) We used a Bayesian approach to infer stellar parameters from the comparison of the absolute magnitudes and colors of our targets with evolutionary models. Results. Between spectral types M0 V and M7 V our radii cover the range 0.1 Rꙩ < R < 0.6 Rꙩ with an error of 2–3% and our masses cover 0.09 Mꙩ < M < 0.6 Mꙩ with an error of 3–5%. We find good agreement between the masses determined with these different methods for most of our targets. Only the masses of very young objects show discrepancies. This can be well explained with the assumptions that we used for our methods

A tentative detection of He I in the atmosphere of GJ 1214 b

Stars and planetary system

Retrieving the transmission spectrum of HD 209458b using CHOCOLATE: a new chromatic Doppler tomography technique

Stars and planetary system