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A Status Report On A Planet Search Around White Dwarf Stars
We have continued monitoring a pilot sample of 15 isolated, pulsating DA white dwarfs for center-of-mass motion caused by a planetary companion. Roughly 7 years into our survey, we have preliminary evidence for periodic variations in pulse arrival times for at least two white dwarfs in our sample. The variations in these systems are unlikely to be caused by secular evolution and are possibly the result of motion of the white dwarf around a center of mass. We have yet to claim confirmation of a planet. GD66 is a previously published candidate system, with a modulation in pulse arrival times that could be caused by a 2.0 M-J sin i planetary companion with an 8.3 year orbital period. Another candidate system, WD1354+0108, has a phase modulation consistent with a 0.7 M-J sin i planet at 2.3 AU (a 4.5 year orbit). We see similar behavior in two independent frequencies within this star, and while a sinusoid is currently a marginally better fit to the data than a straight line (as we might expect from cooling alone in a DAV), we are hesitant to over-interpret our results. Finally, we have a third system, WD0018+0031, that shows a change in pulse arrival times inconsistent with cooling alone; a 2.7 M-J planet at an orbit of about 5 AU could cause the observed trend. Observations of these candidate systems are ongoing in order to constrain any planetary companions that may be present.Astronom
Evolutionary influences on the structure of red-giant acoustic oscillation spectra from 600d of Kepler observations
Context: The Kepler space mission is reaching continuous observing times long
enough to start studying the fine structure of the observed p-mode spectra.
Aims: In this paper, we aim to study the signature of stellar evolution on the
radial and p-dominated l=2 modes in an ensemble of red giants that show
solar-type oscillations. Results: We find that the phase shift of the central
radial mode (eps_c) is significantly different for red giants at a given large
frequency separation (Dnu_c) but which burn only H in a shell (RGB) than those
that have already ignited core He burning. Even though not directly probing the
stellar core the pair of local seismic observables (Dnu_c, eps_c) can be used
as an evolutionary stage discriminator that turned out to be as reliable as the
period spacing of the mixed dipole modes. We find a tight correlation between
eps_c and Dnu_c for RGB stars and no indication that eps_c depends on other
properties of these stars. It appears that the difference in eps_c between the
two populations becomes if we use an average of several radial orders, instead
of a local, i.e. only around the central radial mode, Dnu to determine the
phase shift. This indicates that the information on the evolutionary stage is
encoded locally, in the shape of the radial mode sequence. This shape turns out
to be approximately symmetric around the central radial mode for RGB stars but
asymmetric for core He burning stars. We computed radial modes for a sequence
of RG models and find them to qualitatively confirm our findings. We also find
that, at least in our models, the local Dnu is an at least as good and mostly
better proxy for both the asymptotic spacing and the large separation scaled
from the model density than the average Dnu. Finally, we investigate the
signature of the evolutionary stage on the small frequency separation and
quantify the mass dependency of this seismic parameter.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Mode Identification from Combination Frequency Amplitudes in ZZ Ceti Stars
The lightcurves of variable DA stars are usually multi-periodic and
non-sinusoidal, so that their Fourier transforms show peaks at eigenfrequencies
of the pulsation modes and at sums and differences of these frequencies. These
combination frequencies provide extra information about the pulsations, both
physical and geometrical, that is lost unless they are analyzed. Several
theories provide a context for this analysis by predicting combination
frequency amplitudes. In these theories, the combination frequencies arise from
nonlinear mixing of oscillation modes in the outer layers of the white dwarf,
so their analysis cannot yield direct information on the global structure of
the star as eigenmodes provide. However, their sensitivity to mode geometry
does make them a useful tool for identifying the spherical degree of the modes
that mix to produce them. In this paper, we analyze data from eight hot,
low-amplitude DAV white dwarfs and measure the amplitudes of combination
frequencies present. By comparing these amplitudes to the predictions of the
theory of Goldreich & Wu, we have verified that the theory is crudely
consistent with the measurements. We have also investigated to what extent the
combination frequencies can be used to measure the spherical degree (ell) of
the modes that produce them. We find that modes with ell > 2 are easily
identifiable as high ell based on their combination frequencies alone.
Distinguishing between ell=1 and 2 is also possible using harmonics. These
results will be useful for conducting seismological analysis of large ensembles
of ZZ Ceti stars, such as those being discovered using the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey. Because this method relies only on photometry at optical wavelengths,
it can be applied to faint stars using 4 m class telescopes.Comment: 73 pages, 22 figures, accepted in the Ap
Three ways to solve the orbit of KIC11558725: a 10 day beaming sdB+WD binary with a pulsating subdwarf
The recently discovered subdwarf B (sdB) pulsator KIC11558725 features a rich
g-mode frequency spectrum, with a few low-amplitude p-modes at short periods,
and is a promising target for a seismic study aiming to constrain the internal
structure of this star, and of sdB stars in general.
We have obtained ground-based spectroscopic Balmer-line radial-velocity
measurements of KIC11558725, spanning the 2010 and 2011 observing seasons. From
these data we have discovered that KIC11558725 is a binary with period P=10.05
d, and that the radial-velocity amplitude of the sdB star is 58 km/s.
Consequently the companion of the sdB star has a minimum mass of 0.63 M\odot,
and is therefore most likely an unseen white dwarf.
We analyse the near-continuous 2010-2011 Kepler light curve to reveal orbital
Doppler-beaming light variations at the 238 ppm level, which is consistent with
the observed spectroscopic orbital radial-velocity amplitude of the subdwarf.
We use the strongest 70 pulsation frequencies in the Kepler light curve of the
subdwarf as clocks to derive a third consistent measurement of the orbital
radial-velocity amplitude, from the orbital light-travel delay.
We use our high signal-to-noise average spectra to study the atmospheric
parameters of the sdB star, deriving Teff = 27 910K and log g = 5.41 dex, and
find that carbon, nitrogen and oxygen are underabundant relative to the solar
mixture.
Furthermore, we extract more than 160 significant frequencies from the Kepler
light curve. We investigate the pulsation frequencies for expected period
spacings and rotational splittings. We find period-spacing sequences of
spherical-harmonic degrees \ell=1 and \ell=2, and we associate a large fraction
of the g-modes in KIC11558725 with these sequences. From frequency splittings
we conclude that the subdwarf is rotating subsynchronously with respect to the
orbit
Seismic evidence for a rapidly rotating core in a lower-giant-branch star observed with Kepler
Rotation is expected to have an important influence on the structure and the
evolution of stars. However, the mechanisms of angular momentum transport in
stars remain theoretically uncertain and very complex to take into account in
stellar models. To achieve a better understanding of these processes, we
desperately need observational constraints on the internal rotation of stars,
which until very recently were restricted to the Sun. In this paper, we report
the detection of mixed modes - i.e. modes that behave both as g modes in the
core and as p modes in the envelope - in the spectrum of the early red giant
KIC7341231, which was observed during one year with the Kepler spacecraft. By
performing an analysis of the oscillation spectrum of the star, we show that
its non-radial modes are clearly split by stellar rotation and we are able to
determine precisely the rotational splittings of 18 modes. We then find a
stellar model that reproduces very well the observed atmospheric and seismic
properties of the star. We use this model to perform inversions of the internal
rotation profile of the star, which enables us to show that the core of the
star is rotating at least five times faster than the envelope. This will shed
new light on the processes of transport of angular momentum in stars. In
particular, this result can be used to place constraints on the angular
momentum coupling between the core and the envelope of early red giants, which
could help us discriminate between the theories that have been proposed over
the last decades.Comment: Accepted in ApJ, 39 pages, 16 figure
Terrestrial Planet Occurrence Rates for the Kepler GK Dwarf Sample
We measure planet occurrence rates using the planet candidates discovered by
the Q1-Q16 Kepler pipeline search. This study examines planet occurrence rates
for the Kepler GK dwarf target sample for planet radii, 0.75<Rp<2.5 Rearth, and
orbital periods, 50<Porb<300 days, with an emphasis on a thorough exploration
and identification of the most important sources of systematic uncertainties.
Integrating over this parameter space, we measure an occurrence rate of F=0.77
planets per star, with an allowed range of 0.3<F<1.9. The allowed range takes
into account both statistical and systematic uncertainties, and values of F
beyond the allowed range are significantly in disagreement with our analysis.
We generally find higher planet occurrence rates and a steeper increase in
planet occurrence rates towards small planets than previous studies of the
Kepler GK dwarf sample. Through extrapolation, we find that the one year
orbital period terrestrial planet occurrence rate, zeta_1=0.1, with an allowed
range of 0.01<zeta_1<2, where zeta_1 is defined as the number of planets per
star within 20% of the Rp and Porb of Earth. For G dwarf hosts, the zeta_1
parameter space is a subset of the larger eta_earth parameter space, thus
zeta_1 places a lower limit on eta_earth for G dwarf hosts. From our analysis,
we identify the leading sources of systematics impacting Kepler occurrence rate
determinations as: reliability of the planet candidate sample, planet radii,
pipeline completeness, and stellar parameters.Comment: 19 Pages, 17 Figures, Submitted ApJ. Python source to support Kepler
pipeline completeness estimates available at
http://github.com/christopherburke/KeplerPORTs
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