41 research outputs found
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] , K, and for TrES-3,
and [Fe/H] , K, and 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 (related to the stellar density) in conjunction with our
new temperatures and metallicities. The masses and radii we derive are
M_\star=0.928_{-0.048}^{+0.028} M_{\sun},R_\star = 0.829_{-0.022}^{+0.015}
R_{\sun}, and M_\star = 1.404_{-0.134}^{+0.066} M_{\sun},
R_\star=1.846_{-0.087}^{+0.096} R_{\sun} for TrES-3 and TrES-4, respectively.
With these revised stellar parameters we obtain improved values for the
planetary masses and radii. We find , for TrES-3, and
, for TrES-4. We confirm TrES-4 as the planet with the largest
radius among the currently known transiting hot Jupiters.Comment: 42 pages, 10 tables, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journa
Observational Tests of Planet Formation Models
We summarize the results of two experiments to address important issues
related to the correlation between planet frequencies and properties and the
metallicity of the hosts. Our results can usefully inform formation,
structural, and evolutionary models of gas giant planets.Comment: 2 pages, no figures. To appear in the proceedings of "IAU conference
249: Exoplanets: Detection, Formation and Dynamics", held in Suzhou, China,
22-26 Oct. 200
Kepler-47: A Transiting Circumbinary Multi-Planet System
We report the detection of Kepler-47, a system consisting of two planets
orbiting around an eclipsing pair of stars. The inner and outer planets have
radii 3.0 and 4.6 times that of the Earth, respectively. The binary star
consists of a Sun-like star and a companion roughly one-third its size,
orbiting each other every 7.45 days. With an orbital period of 49.5 days,
eighteen transits of the inner planet have been observed, allowing a detailed
characterization of its orbit and those of the stars. The outer planet's
orbital period is 303.2 days, and although the planet is not Earth-like, it
resides within the classical "habitable zone", where liquid water could exist
on an Earth-like planet. With its two known planets, Kepler-47 establishes that
close binary stars can host complete planetary systems.Comment: To appear on Science Express August 28, 11 pages, 3 figures, one
table (main text), 56 pages, 28 figures, 10 table
A homogeneous spectroscopic analysis of host stars of transiting planets
The analysis of transiting extra-solar planets provides an enormous amount of
information about the formation and evolution of planetary systems. A precise
knowledge of the host stars is necessary to derive the planetary properties
accurately. The properties of the host stars, especially their chemical
composition, are also of interest in their own right. Information about planet
formation is inferred by, among others, correlations between different
parameters such as the orbital period and the metallicity of the host stars.
The stellar properties studied should be derived as homogeneously as possible.
The present work provides new, uniformly derived parameters for 13 host stars
of transiting planets. Effective temperature, surface gravity, microturbulence
parameter, and iron abundance were derived from spectra of both high
signal-to-noise ratio and high resolution by assuming iron excitation and
ionization equilibria. For some stars, the new parameters differ from previous
determinations, which is indicative of changes in the planetary radii. A
systematic offset in the abundance scale with respect to previous assessments
is found for the TrES and HAT objects. Our abundance measurements are
remarkably robust in terms of the uncertainties in surface gravities. The iron
abundances measured in the present work are supplemented by all previous
determinations using the same analysis technique. The distribution of iron
abundance then agrees well with the known metal-rich distribution of planet
host stars. To facilitate future studies, the spectroscopic results of the
current work are supplemented by the findings for other host stars of
transiting planets, for a total dataset of 50 objects.Comment: accepted for publication in A&A, 7 pages, 6 figure
WASP-50b: a hot Jupiter transiting a moderately active solar-type star
We report the discovery by the WASP transit survey of a giant planet in a
close orbit (0.0295+-0.0009 AU) around a moderately bright (V=11.6, K=10) G9
dwarf (0.89+-0.08 M_sun, 0.84+-0.03 R_sun) in the Southern constellation
Eridanus. Thanks to high-precision follow-up photometry and spectroscopy
obtained by the telescopes TRAPPIST and Euler, the mass and size of this
planet, WASP-50b, are well constrained to 1.47+-0.09 M_jup and 1.15+-0.05
R_jup, respectively. The transit ephemeris is 2455558.6120 (+-0.0002) + N x
1.955096 (+-0.000005) HJD_UTC. The size of the planet is consistent with basic
models of irradiated giant planets. The chromospheric activity (log R'_HK =
-4.67) and rotational period (P_rot = 16.3+-0.5 days) of the host star suggest
an age of 0.8+-0.4 Gy that is discrepant with a stellar-evolution estimate
based on the measured stellar parameters (rho_star = 1.48+-0.10 rho_sun, Teff =
5400+-100 K, [Fe/H]= -0.12+-0.08) which favours an age of 7+-3.5 Gy. This
discrepancy could be explained by the tidal and magnetic influence of the
planet on the star, in good agreement with the observations that stars hosting
hot Jupiters tend to show faster rotation and magnetic activity (Pont 2009;
Hartman 2010). We measure a stellar inclination of 84 (-31,+6) deg,
disfavouring a high stellar obliquity. Thanks to its large irradiation and the
relatively small size of its host star, WASP-50b is a good target for
occultation spectrophotometry, making it able to constrain the relationship
between hot Jupiters' atmospheric thermal profiles and the chromospheric
activity of their host stars proposed by Knutson et al. (2010).Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
WASP-42 b and WASP-49 b: two new transiting sub-Jupiters
We report the discovery of two new transiting planets from the WASP survey.
WASP-42 b is a 0.500 +/- 0.035 M_jup planet orbiting a K1 star at a separation
of 0.0548 +/- 0.0017 AU with a period of 4.9816872 +/- 7.3 x 10^-6 days. The
radius of WASP-42 b is 1.080 +/- 0.057 R_jup while its equilibrium temperature
is T_eq = 995 +/- 34 K. We detect some evidence for a small but non-zero
eccentricity of e=0.060 +/- 0.013. WASP-49 b is a 0.378 +/- 0.027 M_jup planet
around an old G6 star. It has a period of 2.7817387 +/- 5.6 x 10^-6 days and a
separation of 0.0379 +/- 0.0011 AU. This planet is slightly bloated, having a
radius of 1.115 +/- 0.047 R_jup and an equilibrium temperature of T_eq = 1369
+/- 39 K. Both planets have been followed up photometrically, and in total we
have obtained 5 full and one partial transit light curves of WASP-42 and 4 full
and one partial light curves of WASP-49 using the Euler-Swiss, TRAPPIST and
Faulkes South telescopes
Characteristics of Kepler Planetary Candidates Based on the First Data Set: The Majority are Found to be Neptune-Size and Smaller
In the spring of 2009, the Kepler Mission commenced high-precision photometry
on nearly 156,000 stars to determine the frequency and characteristics of small
exoplanets, conduct a guest observer program, and obtain asteroseismic data on
a wide variety of stars. On 15 June 2010 the Kepler Mission released data from
the first quarter of observations. At the time of this publication, 706 stars
from this first data set have exoplanet candidates with sizes from as small as
that of the Earth to larger than that of Jupiter. Here we give the identity and
characteristics of 306 released stars with planetary candidates. Data for the
remaining 400 stars with planetary candidates will be released in February
2011. Over half the candidates on the released list have radii less than half
that of Jupiter. The released stars include five possible multi-planet systems.
One of these has two Neptune-size (2.3 and 2.5 Earth-radius) candidates with
near-resonant periods.Comment: Paper to accompany Kepler's June 15, 2010 data release; submitted to
Astrophysical Journal Figures 1,2,& 3 revised. Improved labeling on all
figures. Slight changes to planet frequencies in result
Orbital effects of a monochromatic plane gravitational wave with ultra-low frequency incident on a gravitationally bound two-body system
We analytically compute the long-term orbital variations of a test particle
orbiting a central body acted upon by an incident monochromatic plane
gravitational wave. We assume that the characteristic size of the perturbed
two-body system is much smaller than the wavelength of the wave. Moreover, we
also suppose that the wave's frequency is much smaller than the particle's
orbital one. We make neither a priori assumptions about the direction of the
wavevector nor on the orbital geometry of the planet. We find that, while the
semi-major axis is left unaffected, the eccentricity, the inclination, the
longitude of the ascending node, the longitude of pericenter and the mean
anomaly undergo non-vanishing long-term changes. They are not secular trends
because of the slow modulation introduced by the tidal matrix coefficients and
by the orbital elements themselves. They could be useful to indepenedently
constrain the ultra-low frequency waves which may have been indirectly detected
in the BICEP2 experiment. Our calculation holds, in general, for any
gravitationally bound two-body system whose characteristic frequency is much
larger than the frequency of the external wave. It is also valid for a generic
perturbation of tidal type with constant coefficients over timescales of the
order of the orbital period of the perturbed particle.Comment: LaTex2e, 24 pages, no figures, no tables. Changes suggested by the
referees include
Planet Occurrence within 0.25 AU of Solar-type Stars from Kepler
We report the distribution of planets as a function of planet radius (R_p),
orbital period (P), and stellar effective temperature (Teff) for P < 50 day
orbits around GK stars. These results are based on the 1,235 planets (formally
"planet candidates") from the Kepler mission that include a nearly complete set
of detected planets as small as 2 Earth radii (Re). For each of the 156,000
target stars we assess the detectability of planets as a function of R_p and P.
We also correct for the geometric probability of transit, R*/a. We consider
first stars within the "solar subset" having Teff = 4100-6100 K, logg =
4.0-4.9, and Kepler magnitude Kp < 15 mag. We include only those stars having
noise low enough to permit detection of planets down to 2 Re. We count planets
in small domains of R_p and P and divide by the included target stars to
calculate planet occurrence in each domain. Occurrence of planets varies by
more than three orders of magnitude and increases substantially down to the
smallest radius (2 Re) and out to the longest orbital period (50 days, ~0.25
AU) in our study. For P < 50 days, the radius distribution is given by a power
law, df/dlogR= k R^\alpha. This rapid increase in planet occurrence with
decreasing planet size agrees with core-accretion, but disagrees with
population synthesis models. We fit occurrence as a function of P to a power
law model with an exponential cutoff below a critical period P_0. For smaller
planets, P_0 has larger values, suggesting that the "parking distance" for
migrating planets moves outward with decreasing planet size. We also measured
planet occurrence over Teff = 3600-7100 K, spanning M0 to F2 dwarfs. The
occurrence of 2-4 Re planets in the Kepler field increases with decreasing
Teff, making these small planets seven times more abundant around cool stars
than the hottest stars in our sample. [abridged]Comment: Submitted to ApJ, 22 pages, 10 figure
Masses, radii, and orbits of small Kepler planets : The transition from gaseous to rocky planets
We report on the masses, sizes, and orbits of the planets orbiting 22 Kepler stars. There are 49 planet candidates around these stars, including 42 detected through transits and 7 revealed by precise Doppler measurements of the host stars. Based on an analysis of the Kepler brightness measurements, along with high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy, Doppler spectroscopy, and (for 11 stars) asteroseismology, we establish low false-positive probabilities (FPPs) for all of the transiting planets (41 of 42 have an FPP under 1%), and we constrain their sizes and masses. Most of the transiting planets are smaller than three times the size of Earth. For 16 planets, the Doppler signal was securely detected, providing a direct measurement of the planet's mass. For the other 26 planets we provide either marginal mass measurements or upper limits to their masses and densities; in many cases we can rule out a rocky composition. We identify six planets with densities above 5 g cm-3, suggesting a mostly rocky interior for them. Indeed, the only planets that are compatible with a purely rocky composition are smaller than 2 R ⊕. Larger planets evidently contain a larger fraction of low-density material (H, He, and H2O).Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio