4,608 research outputs found
Constraining atmospheric parameters and surface magnetic fields with : an application to SPIRou spectra
We report first results on a method aimed at simultaneously characterising
atmospheric parameters and magnetic properties of M dwarfs from high-resolution
nIR spectra recorded with SPIRou in the framework of the SPIRou Legacy Survey.
Our analysis relies on fitting synthetic spectra computed from MARCS model
atmospheres to selected spectral lines, both sensitive and insensitive to
magnetic fields. We introduce a new code, , obtained by
including the Zeeman effect and polarised radiative transfer capabilities to
. We compute a grid of synthetic spectra with
for different magnetic field strengths and develop a
process to simultaneously constrain , , [M/H],
[/Fe] and the average surface magnetic flux. In this paper, we present
our approach and assess its performance using simulations, before applying it
to six targets observed in the context of the SPIRou Legacy Survey (SLS),
namely AU Mic, EV Lac, AD Leo, CN Leo, PM J18482+0741, and DS Leo. Our method
allows us to retrieve atmospheric parameters in good agreement with the
literature, and simultaneously yields surface magnetic fluxes in the range 2-4
kG with a typical precision of 0.05 kG, in agreement with literature estimates,
and consistent with the saturated dynamo regime in which most of these stars
are.Comment: 17 pages plus supplementary material. Accepted for publication in
MNRA
Magnetic activity and hot Jupiters of young Suns : the weak-line T Tauri stars V819 Tau and V830 Tau
SGG acknowledges support from the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) via an Ernest Rutherford Fellowship [ST/J003255/1]. SHPA acknowledges financial support from CNPq, CAPES and Fapemig. AAV acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) via the allocation of an Ambizione Followship. Date of Acceptance: 06/08/2015We report results of a spectropolarimetric and photometric monitoring of the weak-line T Tauri stars (wTTSs) V819 Tau and V830 Tau within the MaTYSSE (Magnetic Topologies of Young Stars and the Survival of close-ingiant Exoplanets) programme, involving the ESPaDOnS spectropolarimeter at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. At ≃3 Myr, both stars dissipated their discs recently and are interesting objects for probing star and planet formation. Profile distortions and Zeeman signatures are detected in the unpolarized and circularly polarized lines, whose rotational modulation we modelled using tomographic imaging, yielding brightness and magnetic maps for both stars. We find that the large-scale magnetic fields of V819 Tau and V830 Tau are mostly poloidal and can be approximated at large radii by 350-400 G dipoles tilted at≃30° to the rotation axis. They are significantly weaker than the field of GQ Lup, an accreting classical T Tauri star (cTTS) with similar mass and age which can be used to compare the magnetic properties of wTTSs and cTTSs. The reconstructed brightness maps of both stars include cool spots and warm plages. Surface differential rotation is small, typically ≃4.4 times smaller than on the Sun, in agreement with previous results on wTTSs. Using our Doppler images to model the activity jitter and filter it out from the radial velocity(RV) curves, we obtain RV residuals with dispersions of 0.033 and 0.104km s-1 for V819 Tau and V830 Tau, respectively. RV residuals suggest that a hot Jupiter may be orbiting V830 Tau, though additional data are needed to confirm this preliminary result. We find no evidence for close-in giant planet around V819 Tau.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
A maximum entropy approach to detect close-in giant planets around active stars
Context: The high spot coverage of young active stars is responsible for distortions of spectral lines that hamper the detection of close-in planets through radial velocity methods.
Aims: We aim to progress towards more efficient exoplanet detection around active stars by optimizing the use of Doppler imaging in radial velocity measurements.
Methods: We propose a simple method to simultaneously extract a brightness map and a set of orbital parameters through a tomographic inversion technique derived from classical Doppler mapping. Based on the maximum entropy principle, the underlying idea is to determine the set of orbital parameters that minimizes the information content of the resulting Doppler map. We carry out a set of numerical simulations to perform a preliminary assessment of the robustness of our method, using an actual Doppler map of the very active star HR 1099 to produce a realistic synthetic data set for various sets of orbital parameters of a single planet in a circular orbit.
Results: Using a simulated time series of 50 line profiles affected by a peak-to-peak activity jitter of 2.5 km s, in most cases we are able to recover the radial velocity amplitude, orbital phase, and orbital period of an artificial planet down to a radial velocity semi-amplitude of the order of the radial velocity scatter due to the photon noise alone (about 50 m s in our case). One noticeable exception occurs when the planetary orbit is close to co-rotation, in which case significant biases are observed in the reconstructed radial velocity amplitude, while the orbital period and phase remain robustly recovered.
Conclusions: The present method constitutes a very simple way to extract orbital parameters from heavily distorted line profiles of active stars, when more classical radial velocity detection methods generally fail. It is easily adaptable to most existing Doppler imaging codes, paving the way towards a systematic search for close-in planets orbiting young, rapidly-rotating stars
Magnetic topologies of cool stars
Stellar magnetic fields can be investigated using several, very complementary
approaches. While conventional spectroscopy is capable of estimating the
average magnetic strength of potentially complex field configurations thanks to
its low sensitivity to the vector properties of the field, spectropolarimetry
can be used to map the medium- and large-scale structure of magnetic
topologies. In particular, the latter approach allows one to retrieve
information about the poloidal and toroidal components of the large-scale
dynamo fields in low-mass stars, and thus to investigate the physical processes
that produce them. Similarly, this technique can be used to explore how
magnetic fields couple young stars to their massive accretion disc and thus to
estimate how much mass and angular momentum are transfered to the newly-born
low-mass star. We present here the latest results in this field obtained with
spectropolarimetry, with special emphasis on the surprising discoveries
obtained on very-low mass fully-convective stars and classical T Tauri stars
thanks to the ESPaDOnS spectropolarimeter recently installed on the 3.6m
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.Comment: 10p invited review paper, 3 figures, to be published in the
proceedings of the 14th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems,
and the Sun, November 6-10, 2006, ed. G. van Belle (ASP Conf Ser
Frenkel and charge transfer excitons in C60
We have studied the low energy electronic excitations of C60 using momentum
dependent electron energy-loss spectroscopy in transmission. The momentum
dependent intensity of the gap excitation allows the first direct experimental
determination of the energy of the 1Hg excitation and thus also of the total
width of the multiplet resulting from the gap transition. In addition, we could
elucidate the nature of the following excitations - as either Frenkel or charge
transfer excitons.Comment: RevTEX, 3 Figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Large-scale magnetic topologies of late M dwarfs
We present here the final results of the first spectropolarimetric survey of
a small sample of active M dwarfs, aimed at providing observational constraints
on dynamo action on both sides of the full-convection threshold (spectral type
M4). Our two previous studies (Donati et al. 2008b; Morin et al. 2008b) were
focused on early and mid M dwarfs. The present paper examines 11 fully
convective late M dwarfs (spectral types M5-M8). Tomographic imaging techniques
were applied to time-series of circularly polarised profiles of 6 stars, in
order to infer their large-scale magnetic topologies. For 3 other stars we
could not produce such magnetic maps, because of low variability of the Stokes
V signatures, but were able to derive some properties of the magnetic fields.
We find 2 distinct categories of magnetic topologies: on the one hand strong
axisymmetric dipolar fields (similar to mid M dwarfs), and on the other hand
weak fields generally featuring a significant non-axisymmetric component, and
sometimes a significant toroidal one. Comparison with unsigned magnetic fluxes
demonstrates that the second category of magnetic fields shows less
organization (less energy in the large scales), similarly to partly convective
early M dwarfs. Stars in both categories have similar stellar parameters, our
data do not evidence a separation between these 2 categories in the
mass-rotation plane. We also report marginal detection of a large-scale
magnetic field on the M8 star VB 10 featuring a significant toroidal
axisymmetric component, whereas no field is detectable on VB 8 (M7).Comment: 26 pages, 16 figures, 9 tables, 11 tables in appendix. Accepted for
publication in MNRA
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