25 research outputs found
Implementation of Helioseismic Data Reduction and Diagnostic Techniques on Massively Parallel Architectures
Under the direction of Dr. Rhodes, and the technical supervision of Dr. Korzennik, the data assimilation of high spatial resolution solar dopplergrams has been carried out throughout the program on the Intel Delta Touchstone supercomputer. With the help of a research assistant, partially supported by this grant, and under the supervision of Dr. Korzennik, code development was carried out at SAO, using various available resources. To ensure cross-platform portability, PVM was selected as the message passing library. A parallel implementation of power spectra computation for helioseismology data reduction, using PVM was successfully completed. It was successfully ported to SMP architectures (i.e. SUN), and to some MPP architectures (i.e. the CM5). Due to limitation of the implementation of PVM on the Cray T3D, the port to that architecture was not completed at the time
Seismic Study of the Subsurface Structure and Dynamics of the Solar Interior from High Spatial Resolution Observations
We have carried out the data reduction and analysis of Mt. Wilson 60' solar tower high spatial resolution observations. The reduction of the 100-day-long summer of 1990 observation campaign in terms of rotational splittings was completed leading to an excess of 600,000 splittings. The analysis of these splittings lead to a new inference of the solar internal rotation rate as a function of depth and latitude
Precision and systematic errors in global helioseismology mode fitting and inversions: Leveraging some 25Â years of nearly uninterrupted observations
We have on hand some 25Â years of nearly uninterrupted high-quality and high-cadence global helioseismic data. The Global Oscillations Network Group (GONG) project has been producing science quality data since 1995, the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) started in 1996, and the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) took over in 2010. Fundamental new constraints have been imposed by helioseismic inferences, yet global helioseismology data processing seems somewhat frozen in time for some of its methodologies. I review and discuss some specific aspects of global helioseismology data analysis, with an emphasis on the issues and challenges presented by mode fitting and inversion techniques. I compare and contrast results derived by different fitting methods, whether using different techniques, different lengths of time series, or different fitting parameters, like leakage matrices or the inclusion or omission of the mode profile asymmetry, leading to our current best handle on the residual systematic errors
An Upper Limit on the Reflected Light from the Planet Orbiting the Star tau Bootis
The planet orbiting tau Boo at a separation of 0.046 AU could produce a
reflected light flux as bright as 1e-4 relative to that of the star. A spectrum
of the system will contain a reflected light component which varies in
amplitude and Doppler-shift as the planet orbits the star. Assuming the
secondary spectrum is primarily the reflected stellar spectrum, we can limit
the relative reflected light flux to be less than 5e-5. This implies an upper
limit of 0.3 for the planetary geometric albedo near 480 nm, assuming a
planetary radius of 1.2 R_Jup. This albedo is significantly less than that of
any of the giant planets of the solar system, and is not consistent with
certain published theoretical predictions.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, accepted by ApJ Letter
Exoplanets or Dynamic Atmospheres? The Radial Velocity and Line Shape Variations of 51 Pegasi and Tau Bootis
Because of our relatively low spectral resolution, we compare our
observations with Gray's line bisector data by fitting observed line profiles
to an expansion in terms of orthogonal (Hermite) functions. To obtain an
accurate comparison, we model the emergent line profiles from rotating and
pulsating stars, taking the instrumental point spread function into account. We
describe this modeling process in detail.
We find no evidence for line profile or strength variations at the radial
velocity period in either 51 Peg or in Tau Boo. For 51 Peg, our upper limit for
line shape variations with 4.23-day periodicity is small enough to exclude with
10 sigma confidence the bisector curvature signal reported by Gray & Hatzes;
the bisector span and relative line depth signals reported by Gray (1997) are
also not seen, but in this case with marginal (2 sigma) confidence. We cannot,
however, exclude pulsations as the source of 51 Peg's radial velocity
variation, because our models imply that line shape variations associated with
pulsations should be much smaller than those computed by Gray & Hatzes; these
smaller signals are below the detection limits both for Gray & Hatzes' data and
for our own.
Tau Boo's large radial velocity amplitude and v*sin(i) make it easier to test
for pulsations in this star. Again we find no evidence for periodic line-shape
changes, at a level that rules out pulsations as the source of the radial
velocity variability. We conclude that the planet hypothesis remains the most
likely explanation for the existing data.Comment: 44 pages, 19 figures, plain TeX, accepted to ApJS (companion to
letter astro-ph/9712279
A High-Eccentricity Low-Mass Companion to HD 89744
HD 89744 is an F7 V star with mass 1.4 M, effective temperature 6166 K, age
2.0 Gy and metallicity [Fe/H]= 0.18. The radial velocity of the star has been
monitored with the AFOE spectrograph at the Whipple Observatory since 1996, and
evidence has been found for a low mass companion. The data were complemented by
additional data from the Hamilton spectrograph at Lick Observatory during the
companion's periastron passage in fall 1999. As a result, we have determined
the star's orbital wobble to have period P = 256 d, orbital amplitude K = 257
m/s, and eccentricity e = 0.7. From the stellar mass we infer that the
companion has minimum mass m2 sin i = 7.2 MJup in an orbit with semi-major axis
a2 = 0.88 AU. The eccentricity of the orbit, among the highest known for
extra-solar planets, continues the trend that extra-solar planets with
semi-major axes greater than about 0.15 AU tend to have much higher
eccentricities than are found in our solar system. The high metallicity of the
parent star reinforces the trend that parent stars of extra-solar planets tend
to have high metallicityComment: AASTEX-LateX v5.0, 7 pages w/ 3 figures, to be published in ApJ
A Keck/HIRES Doppler Search for Planets Orbiting Metal-Poor Dwarfs. I. Testing Giant Planet Formation and Migration Scenarios
We describe a high-precision Doppler search for giant planets orbiting a
well-defined sample of metal-poor dwarfs in the field. This experiment
constitutes a fundamental test of theoretical predictions which will help
discriminate between proposed giant planet formation and migration models. We
present here details on the survey as well as an overall assessment of the
quality of our measurements, making use of the results for the stars that show
no significant velocity variation.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
A Keck HIRES Doppler Search for Planets Orbiting Metal-Poor Dwarfs. II. On the Frequency of Giant Planets in the Metal-Poor Regime
We present an analysis of three years of precision radial velocity
measurements of 160 metal-poor stars observed with HIRES on the Keck 1
telescope. We report on variability and long-term velocity trends for each star
in our sample. We identify several long-term, low-amplitude radial-velocity
variables worthy of follow-up with direct imaging techniques. We place lower
limits on the detectable companion mass as a function of orbital period. Our
survey would have detected, with a 99.5% confidence level, over 95% of all
companions on low-eccentricity orbits with velocity semi-amplitude K > 100 m/s,
or M_p*sin(i) > 3.0 M_JUP*(P/yr)^(1/3), for orbital periods P< 3 yr. None of
the stars in our sample exhibits radial-velocity variations compatible with the
presence of Jovian planets with periods shorter than the survey duration. The
resulting average frequency of gas giants orbiting metal-poor dwarfs with -2.0
< [Fe/H] < -0.6 is f_p<0.67% (at the 1-sigma confidence level). We examine the
implications of this null result in the context of the observed correlation
between the rate of occurrence of giant planets and the metallicity of their
main-sequence solar-type stellar hosts. By combining our dataset with the
Fischer & Valenti (2005) uniform sample, we confirm that the likelihood of a
star to harbor a planet more massive than Jupiter within 2 AU is a steeply
rising function of the host's metallicity. However, the data for stars with
-1.0 < [Fe/H] < 0.0 are compatible, in a statistical sense, with a constant
occurrence rate f_p~1%. Our results can usefully inform theoretical studies of
the process of giant planet formation across two orders of magnitude in
metallicity.Comment: 59 pages, 7 tables, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journa
A New Spectroscopic and Photometric Analysis of the Transiting Planet Systems TrES-3 and TrES-4
We report new spectroscopic and photometric observations of the parent stars of the recently discovered transiting planets TrES-3 and TrES-4. A detailed abundance analysis based on high-resolution spectra yields [Fe/H] = –0.19 ± 0.08, T_(eff) = 5650 ± 75 K, and log g = 4.4 ± 0.1 for TrES-3, and [Fe/H] = +0.14 ± 0.09, T_(eff) = 6200 ± 75 K, and log g = 4.0 ± 0.1 for TrES-4. The accuracy of the effective temperatures is supported by a number of independent consistency checks. The spectroscopic orbital solution for TrES-3 is improved with our new radial velocity measurements of that system, as are the light-curve parameters for both systems based on newly acquired photometry for TrES-3 and a reanalysis of existing photometry for TrES-4. We have redetermined the stellar parameters taking advantage of the strong constraint provided by the light curves in the form of the normalized separation a/R_* (related to the stellar density) in conjunction with our new temperatures and metallicities. The masses and radii we derive are M_* = 0.928^(+0.028)_(–0.048) M_⊙, R_* = 0.829^(+0.015)_(–0.022) R_⊙, and M_* = 1.404^(+0.066)_(–0.134) M_⊙, R_* = 1.846^(+0.096)_(–0.087) R_⊙ for TrES-3 and TrES-4, respectively. With these revised stellar parameters, we obtain improved values for the planetary masses and radii. We find M_p = 1.910^(+0.075)_(–0.080) M_(Jup), R_p = 1.336^(+0.031)_(–0.036) R_(Jup) for TrES-3, and M_p = 0.925 ± 0.082 M_(Jup), R_p = 1.783^(+0.093)_(–0.086) R_(Jup) for TrES-4. We confirm TrES-4 as the planet with the largest radius among the currently known transiting hot Jupiters