8,259 research outputs found
Searching for the signatures of terrestrial planets in F-, G-type main-sequence stars
We have studied the volatile-to-refractory abundance ratios to investigate
their possible relation with the low-mass planetary formation. We present a
fully differential chemical abundance analysis using high-quality HARPS and
UVES spectra of 61 late F- and early G-type main-sequence stars, 29 are planet
hosts and 32 are stars without detected planets. As the previous sample of
solar analogs, these stars slightly hotter than the Sun also provide very
accurate Galactic chemical abundance trends in the metallicity range . Stars with and without planets show similar mean abundance
ratios. Moreover, when removing the Galactic chemical evolution effects, these
mean abundance ratios, , versus condensation
temperature tend to exhibit less steep trends with nearly null or slightly
negative slopes. We have also analyzed a sub-sample of 26 metal-rich stars, 13
with and 13 without known planets and find the similar, although not equal,
abundance pattern with negative slopes for both samples of stars with and
without planets. Using stars at S/N provides equally steep abundance
trends with negative slopes for both stars with and without planets. We revisit
the sample of solar analogs to study the abundance patterns of these stars, in
particular, 8 stars hosting super-Earth-like planets. Among these stars having
very low-mass planets, only four of them reveal clear increasing abundance
trends versus condensation temperature. Finally, we have compared these
observed slopes with those predicted using a simple model which enables us to
compute the mass of rocks which have formed terrestrial planets in each
planetary system. We do not find any evidence supporting the conclusion that
the volatile-to-refractory abundance ratio is related to the presence of rocky
planets.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
Atypical Presentations of Hearing Loss in Patients with Acoustic Neuroma
A hipoacúsia neurosensorial unilateral e progressiva é uma das principais manisfestações audiológicas dos doentes com diagnóstico de neurinoma do acústico, estando no entanto descritas outras formas de apresentação. Dos 43 doentes com diagnóstico de neurinoma do acústico, tratados pela equipa de otoneurocirurgia entre 1997 e 2003, identificamos 88,5% com hipoacústica neurosensorial unilateral, 4,6% como hipoacústica neurosensorial súbita, 4,6% com audição simétrica e 2,3% com audição "normal". Estes dados revelam a existência de três formas incomuns de apresentação dos neurinomas, facto que deve levar os otorrinolaringologistas a manterem um elevado grau de alerta perante doentes com queixas que possam sugerir, de algum modo, a presença de neurinoma do acústico
Chemical abundances of 1111 FGK stars from the HARPS GTO planet search program II: Cu, Zn, Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, Ce, Nd and Eu
To understand the formation and evolution of the different stellar
populations within our Galaxy it is essential to combine detailed kinematical
and chemical information for large samples of stars. We derive chemical
abundances of Cu, Zn, Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, Ce, Nd and Eu for a large sample of more
than 1000 FGK dwarf stars with high-resolution (\,115000) and
high-quality spectra from the HARPS-GTO program. The abundances are derived by
a standard Local Thermodinamyc Equilibrium (LTE) analysis using measured
Equivalent Widths (EWs) injected to the code MOOG and a grid of Kurucz ATLAS9
atmospheres. We find that thick disk stars are chemically disjunct for Zn and
Eu and also show on average higher Zr but lower Ba and Y when compared to the
thin disk stars. We also discovered that the previously identified
high- metal-rich population is also enhanced in Cu, Zn, Nd and Eu with
respect to the thin disk but presents Ba and Y abundances lower on average,
following the trend of thick disk stars towards higher metallities and further
supporting the different chemical composition of this population. The ratio of
heavy-s to light-s elements of thin disk stars presents the expected behaviour
(increasing towards lower metallicities) and can be explained by a major
contribution of low-mass AGB stars for s-process production at disk
metallicities. However, the opposite trend found for thick disk stars suggests
that intermediate-mass AGB stars played an important role in the enrichment of
the gas from where these stars formed. Previous works in the literature also
point to a possible primary production of light-s elements at low metallicities
to explain this trend. Finally, we also find an enhancement of light-s elements
in the thin disk at super solar metallicities which could be caused by the
contribution of metal-rich AGB stars. (short version)Comment: 20 pages, 19 figures, accepted by A&
Solar analogs with and without planets: T trends and galactic evolution
We explore a sample of 148 solar-like stars to search for a possible
correlation between the slopes of the abundance trends versus condensation
temperature (known as the Tc slope) both with stellar parameters and Galactic
orbital parameters in order to understand the nature of the peculiar chemical
signatures of these stars and the possible connection with planet formation. We
find that the Tc slope correlates at a significant level with the stellar age
and the stellar surface gravity. We also find tentative evidence that the Tc
slope correlates with the mean galactocentric distance of the stars (Rmean),
suggesting that stars that originated in the inner Galaxy have fewer refractory
elements relative to the volatile ones. We found that the chemical
peculiarities (small refractory-to-volatile ratio) of planet-hosting stars is
probably a reflection of their older age and their inner Galaxy origin. We
conclude that the stellar age and probably Galactic birth place are key to
establish the abundances of some specific elements.Comment: Proceedings of the GREAT-ITN conference: The Milky Way Unravelled by
Gaia. Will be published in the "EAS Publications Series
CNO behaviour in planet-harbouring stars. II. Carbon abundances in stars with and without planets using the CH band
Context. Carbon, oxygen and nitrogen (CNO) are key elements in stellar
formation and evolution, and their abundances should also have a significant
impact on planetary formation and evolution.
Aims. We present a detailed spectroscopic analysis of 1110 solar-type stars,
143 of which are known to have planetary companions. We have determined the
carbon abundances of these stars and investigate a possible connection between
C and the presence of planetary companions. Methods. We used the HARPS
spectrograph to obtain high-resolution optical spectra of our targets. Spectral
synthesis of the CH band at 4300\AA was performed with the spectral synthesis
codes MOOG and FITTING.
Results. We have studied carbon in several reliable spectral windows and have
obtained abundances and distributions that show that planet host stars are
carbon rich when compared to single stars, a signature caused by the known
metal-rich nature of stars with planets. We find no different behaviour when
separating the stars by the mass of the planetary companion.
Conclusions. We conclude that reliable carbon abundances can be derived for
solar-type stars from the CH band at 4300\AA. We confirm two different slope
trends for [C/Fe] with [Fe/H] because the behaviour is opposite for stars above
and below solar values. We observe a flat distribution of the [C/Fe] ratio for
all planetary masses, a finding that apparently excludes any clear connection
between the [C/Fe] abundance ratio and planetary mass.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. Accepted to A&
C/O vs Mg/Si ratios in solar type stars: The HARPS sample
Aims. We present a detailed study of the Mg/Si and C/O ratios and their
importance in determining the mineralogy of planetary companions. Methods.
Using 499 solar-like stars from the HARPS sample, we determine C/O and Mg/Si
elemental abundance ratios to study the nature of the possible planets formed.
We separated the planetary population in low-mass planets ( < 30 ) and high-mass planets ( > 30 ) to test for possible
relation with the mass. Results. We find a diversity of mineralogical ratios
that reveal the different kinds of planetary systems that can be formed, most
of them dissimilar to our solar system. The different values of the Mg/Si and
C/O ratios can determine different composition of planets formed. We found that
100\% of our planetary sample present C/O < 0.8. 86\% of stars with high-mass
companions present 0.8 > C/O > 0.4, while 14\% present C/O values lower than
0.4. Regarding Mg/Si, all stars with low-mass planetary companion showed values
between 1 and 2, while 85% of the high-mass companion sample does. The other
15\% showed Mg/Si values below 1. No stars with planets were found with Mg/Si >
2. Planet hosts with low-mass companions present C/O and Mg/Si ratios similar
to those found in the Sun, whereas stars with high-mass companions have lower
C/O.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figues. Accepted in A&
Aplicação de tratamentos fÃsicos e quÃmicos em sementes de beterraba importada, na erradicação de Ditylenchus dipsaci (KÃœNH, 1857) Filipjev, 1936.
bitstream/CENARGEN/28002/1/ct036.pd
Exploring the alpha-enhancement of metal-poor planet-hosting stars. The Kepler and HARPS samples
Recent studies showed that at low metallicities Doppler-detected
planet-hosting stars have preferably high alpha-content and belong to the thick
disk. We used the reconnaissance spectra of 87 Kepler planet candidates and
data available from the HARPS planet search survey to explore this phenomena.
Using the traditional spectroscopic abundance analysis methods we derived Ti,
Ca, and Cr abundances for the Kepler stars. In the metallicity region -0.65 <
[Fe/H] < -0.3 dex the fraction of Ti-enhanced thick-disk HARPS planet harboring
stars is 12.3 +/- 4.1 % and for their thin-disk counterparts this fraction is
2.2 +/- 1.3 %. The binomial statistics gives a probability of 0.008 that this
could have occurred by chance. Combining the two samples (HARPS + Kepler)
reinforces the significance of this result (P ~ 99.97 %). Since most of these
stars are harboring small-mass/size planets we can assume that, although
terrestrial planets can be found at low-iron regime, they are mostly enhanced
by alpha-elements. This implies that early formation of rocky planets could get
started in the Galactic thick disk, where the chemical conditions for their
formation were more favorable.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Li depletion in solar analogues with exoplanets: Extending the sample
We want to study the effects of the formation of planets and planetary
systems on the atmospheric Li abundance of planet host stars. In this work we
present new determinations of lithium abundances for 326 Main Sequence stars
with and without planets in the T range 5600-5900 K. 277 stars
come from the HARPS sample, the remaining targets have been observed with a
variety of high resolution spectrographs. We confirm significant differences in
the Li distribution of solar twins (T = T 80 K,
log g = log g 0.2 and [Fe/H] = [Fe/H] 0.2): the
full sample of planet host stars (22) shows Li average values lower than
"single" stars with no detected planets (60). If we focus in subsamples with
narrower ranges in metallicity and age, we observe indications of a similar
result though it is not so clear for some of the studied subsamples.
Furthermore, we compare the observed spectra of several couples of stars with
very similar parameters which show different Li abundances up to 1.6 dex.
Therefore we show that neither age, nor mass nor metallicity of a parent star
is the only responsible for enhanced Li depletion in solar analogues. We
conclude that another variable must account for that difference and suggest
that this could be the presence of planets which causes additional rotationally
induced mixing in the external layers of planet host stars. Moreover, we find
indications that the amount of depletion of Li in planet host solar-type stars
is higher when the planets are more massive than Jupiter.Comment: 16 pages, accepted for publication in A&
Size-dependent bandgap and particle size distribution of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals
A new analytical expression for the size-dependent bandgap of colloidal
semiconductor nanocrystals is proposed within the framework of the finite-depth
square-well effective mass approximation in order to provide a quantitative
description of the quantum confinement effect. This allows one to convert
optical spectroscopic data (photoluminescence spectrum and absorbance edge)
into accurate estimates for the particle size distributions of colloidal
systems even if the traditional effective mass model is expected to fail, which
occurs typically for very small particles belonging to the so-called strong
confinement limit. By applying the reported theoretical methodologies to CdTe
nanocrystals synthesized through wet chemical routes, size distributions are
inferred and compared directly to those obtained from atomic force microscopy
and transmission electron microscopy. This analysis can be used as a
complementary tool for the characterization of nanocrystal samples of many
other systems such as the II-VI and III-V semiconductor materials.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure
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