We present a sample-based, autoregressive (AR) method for the generation and time evolution of atmospheric phase screens that is computationally efficient and uses a single parameter per Fourier mode ...to vary the power contained in the frozen flow and stochastic components. We address limitations of Fourier-based methods such as screen periodicity and low spatial frequency power content. Comparisons of adaptive optics (AO) simulator performance when fed AR phase screens and translating phase screens reveal significantly elevated residual closed-loop temporal power for small increases in added stochastic content at each time step, thus displaying the importance of properly modeling atmospheric "boiling". We present preliminary evidence that our model fits to AO telemetry are better reflections of real conditions than the pure frozen flow assumption.
Lines of sight with multiple projected cluster-scale gravitational lenses have high total masses and complex lens plane interactions that can boost the area of magnification, or etendue, making ...detection of faint background sources more likely than elsewhere. To identify these new "compound" cosmic telescopes, we have found directions in the sky with the highest integrated mass densities, as traced by the projected concentrations of luminous red galaxies (LRGs). The magnification maps derived from our mass models based on spectroscopy and Sloan Digital Sky Survey photometry alone display substantial etendue: the 68% confidence bands on the lens plane area with magnification exceeding 10 for a source plane of z sub(s) = 10 are 1.2, 3.8 arcmin super(2) for 0850 and 2.3, 6.7 arcmin super(2) for 1306. The significant lensing power of our beams makes them powerful probes of reionization and galaxy formation in the early universe.
We have created specialized target lists for radial velocity surveys that are biased toward stars that (1) possess planets and (2) are easiest to observe with current detection techniques. We use a ...procedure that uniformly estimates fundamental stellar properties of Tycho 2 stars, with errors, using spline functions of broadband photometry and proper motion found in Hipparcos/Tycho 2 and 2MASS. We provide estimates of T sub(eff) and distance for 2.4 x 10 super(6) Tycho 2 stars that lack trigonometric distances. For stars that appear to be FGK dwarfs, we also derive Fe/H and identify unresolved binary systems with mass ratios 1.25 < M sub(1)/M sub(2) < 3.0. For FGK dwarfs with photometric error s sub(V) < 0.05, or V < 9, our temperature model gives a 1 s error of s sub(T) = +58.7/ -65.9 K and our metallicity model gives a 1 s error of s sub(Fe/H) =+0.13/ -0.14 dex. The binarity model can be used to remove 70% of doubles with 1.25 < M sub(1)/M sub(2) < 3.0 from a magnitude-limited sample of dwarfs at a cost of cutting 20% of the sample. Our estimates of distance and spectral type enable us to isolate 354,822 Tycho 2 dwarfs, 321,996 absent from Hipparcos, with giant contamination of 2.6% and 7.2%, respectively. Roughly 100,000 of these stars, not in Hipparcos, have sufficiently low photometric errors to retain 0.13-0.3 dex Fe/H accuracy and 80-100 K temperature accuracy (1 s). Our metallicity estimates have been used to identify targets for N2K, a large-scale radial velocity search for hot jupiters, which has verified the errors presented here. The catalogs that we publish can be used to further large-scale studies of Galactic structure and chemical evolution and to provide potential reference stars for narrow-angle astrometry programs such as the Space Interferometry Mission and large-aperture optical interferometry.
We report the results of a ∼4 yr direct imaging survey of 104 stars to resolve and characterize circumstellar debris disks in scattered light as part of the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) Exoplanet ...Survey. We targeted nearby ( 150 pc), young ( 500 Myr) stars with high infrared (IR) excesses (LIR/L > 10−5), including 38 with previously resolved disks. Observations were made using the GPI high-contrast integral field spectrograph in H-band (1.6 m) coronagraphic polarimetry mode to measure both polarized and total intensities. We resolved 26 debris disks and 3 protoplanetary/transitional disks. Seven debris disks were resolved in scattered light for the first time, including newly presented HD 117214 and HD 156623, and we quantified basic morphologies of five of them using radiative transfer models. All of our detected debris disks except HD 156623 have dust-poor inner holes, and their scattered-light radii are generally larger than corresponding radii measured from resolved thermal emission and those inferred from spectral energy distributions. To assess sensitivity, we report contrasts and consider causes of nondetections. Detections were strongly correlated with high IR excess and high inclination, although polarimetry outperformed total intensity angular differential imaging for detecting low-inclination disks ( 70°). Based on postsurvey statistics, we improved upon our presurvey target prioritization metric predicting polarimetric disk detectability. We also examined scattered-light disks in the contexts of gas, far-IR, and millimeter detections. Comparing H-band and ALMA fluxes for two disks revealed tentative evidence for differing grain properties. Finally, we found no preference for debris disks to be detected in scattered light if wide-separation substellar companions were present.
We present trigonometric parallax and proper motion measurements for two T-type brown dwarfs. We derive our measurements from infrared laser guide star adaptive optics observations spanning five ...years from the ShaneAO/SHARCS and NIRC2/medium-cam instruments on the Shane and Keck telescopes, respectively. To improve our astrometric precision, we measure and apply a distortion correction to our fields for both instruments. We also transform the Keck and ShaneAO astrometric reference frames onto the ICRS using five-parameter parallax and proper motion solutions for background reference stars from Gaia DR2. Fitting for parallax and proper motion, we measure parallaxes of 73.5 ± 9.2 mas and 70.1 ± 6.7 mas for WISEJ19010703+47181688 (WISE1901) and WISEJ21543294+59421370 (WISE2154), respectively. We utilize Monte Carlo methods to estimate the error in our sparse field methods, taking into account overfitting and differential atmospheric refraction. Comparing to previous measurements in the literature, all of our parallax and proper motion values fall within 2σ of the published measurements, and 4 of 6 measurements are within 1σ. These data are among the first parallax measurements of these T dwarfs and serve as precise measurements for calibrating stellar formation models. These two objects are the first results of an ongoing survey of T dwarfs with Keck/NIRC2 and the Shane Adaptive Optics system at Lick Observatory.
We present a combined strong and weak lensing analysis of the J085007.6+360428 (J0850) field, which contains the massive cluster Zwicky 1953. This field was selected for its high projected ...concentration of luminous red galaxies. Using Subaru/Suprime-Cam imaging and MMT/Hectospec spectroscopy, we first perform a weak lensing shear analysis to constrain the mass distribution in this field, including the cluster at z = 0.3774 and a smaller foreground halo at z = 0.2713. We then add a strong lensing constraint from a multiply imaged galaxy in the imaging data with a photometric redshift of z 5.03. Unlike previous cluster-scale lens analyses, our technique accounts for the full three-dimensional mass structure in the beam, including galaxies along the line of sight. In contrast with past cluster analyses that used only lensed image positions as constraints, we use the full surface brightness distribution of the images. This method predicts that the source galaxy crosses a lensing caustic, such that one image is a highly magnified "fold arc" that could be used to probe the source galaxy's structure at ultra-high spatial resolution (<30 pc). We calculate the mass of the primary cluster to be with a concentration of , consistent with the mass-concentration relation of massive clusters at a similar redshift. The large mass of this cluster makes J0850 an excellent field for leveraging lensing magnification to search for high-redshift galaxies, competitive with and complementary to that of well-studied clusters such as the HST Frontier Fields.
We present new observations of the planet β Pictoris b from 2018 with the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), the first GPI observations following conjunction. Based on these new measurements, we perform a ...joint orbit fit to the available relative astrometry from ground-based imaging, the Hipparcos Intermediate Astrometric Data (IAD), and the Gaia DR2 position, and demonstrate how to incorporate the IAD into direct imaging orbit fits. We find a mass consistent with predictions of hot-start evolutionary models and previous works following similar methods, though with larger uncertainties: 12.8+5.3−3.2 MJup. Our eccentricity determination of disfavors circular orbits. We consider orbit fits to several different imaging data sets, and find generally similar posteriors on the mass for each combination of imaging data. Our analysis underscores the importance of performing joint fits to the absolute and relative astrometry simultaneously, given the strong covariance between orbital elements. Time of conjunction is well-constrained within 2.8 days of 2017 September 13, with the star behind the planet's Hill sphere between 2017 April 11 and 2018 February 16 ( 18 days). Following the recent radial velocity detection of a second planet in the system, β Pic c, we perform additional two-planet fits combining relative astrometry, absolute astrometry, and stellar radial velocities. These joint fits find a significantly smaller mass (8.0 2.6 MJup) for the imaged planet β Pic b, in a somewhat more circular orbit. We expect future ground-based observations to further constrain the visual orbit and mass of the planet in advance of the release of Gaia DR4.
Abstract
We present spectrophotometry spanning 1–5
μ
m of 51 Eridani b, a 2–10
planet discovered by the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey. In this study, we present new
K
1 (1.90–2.19
μ
m) and
K
...2 (2.10–2.40
μ
m) spectra taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as well as an updated
L
P
(3.76
μ
m) and new
M
S
(4.67
μ
m) photometry from the NIRC2 Narrow camera. The new data were combined with
J
(1.13–1.35
μ
m) and
H
(1.50–1.80
μ
m) spectra from the discovery epoch with the goal of better characterizing the planet properties. The 51 Eri b photometry is redder than field brown dwarfs as well as known young T-dwarfs with similar spectral type (between T4 and T8), and we propose that 51 Eri b might be in the process of undergoing the transition from L-type to T-type. We used two complementary atmosphere model grids including either deep iron/silicate clouds or sulfide/salt clouds in the photosphere, spanning a range of cloud properties, including fully cloudy, cloud-free, and patchy/intermediate-opacity clouds. The model fits suggest that 51 Eri b has an effective temperature ranging between 605 and 737 K, a solar metallicity, and a surface gravity of log(
g
) = 3.5–4.0 dex, and the atmosphere requires a patchy cloud atmosphere to model the spectral energy distribution (SED). From the model atmospheres, we infer a luminosity for the planet of −5.83 to −5.93 (
), leaving 51 Eri b in the unique position of being one of the only directly imaged planets consistent with having formed via a cold-start scenario. Comparisons of the planet SED against warm-start models indicate that the planet luminosity is best reproduced by a planet formed via core accretion with a core mass between 15 and 127
.
The best gravitational lenses for detecting distant galaxies are those with the largest mass concentrations and the most advantageous configurations of that mass along the line of sight. Our new ...method for finding such gravitational telescopes uses optical data to identify projected concentrations of luminous red galaxies (LRGs). LRGs are biased tracers of the underlying mass distribution, so lines of sight with the highest total luminosity in LRGs are likely to contain the largest total mass. We apply this selection technique to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and identify the 200 fields with the highest total LRG luminosities projected within a 3'.5 radius over the redshift range 0.1 < or =, slant z < or =, slant 0.7. The redshift and angular distributions of LRGs in these fields trace the concentrations of non-LRG galaxies. These fields are diverse; 22.5% contain one known galaxy cluster and 56.0% contain multiple known clusters previously identified in the literature. Thus, our results confirm that these LRGs trace massive structures and that our selection technique identifies fields with large total masses. These fields contain two to three times higher total LRG luminosities than most known strong-lensing clusters and will be among the best gravitational lensing fields for the purpose of detecting the highest redshift galaxies.
We investigate the gravitational lensing properties of lines of sight containing multiple cluster-scale halos, motivated by their ability to lens very high redshift (z ~ 10) sources into ...detectability. We control for the total mass along the line of sight, isolating the effects of distributing the mass among multiple halos and of varying the physical properties of the halos. Our results show that multiple-halo lines of sight can increase the magnified source-plane region compared to the single cluster lenses typically targeted for lensing studies and thus are generally better fields for detecting very high redshift sources. The configurations that result in optimal lensing cross sections benefit from interactions between the lens potentials of the halos when they overlap somewhat on the sky, creating regions of high magnification in the source plane not present when the halos are considered individually. The effect of these interactions on the lensing cross section can even be comparable to changing the total mass of the lens from 10 super(15) M sub(middot in circle) to 3 x 10 super(15) M sub(middot in circle). The gain in lensing cross section increases as the mass is split into more halos, provided that the lens potentials are projected close enough to interact with each other. A nonzero projected halo angular separation, equal halo mass ratio, and high projected halo concentration are the best mass configurations, whereas projected halo ellipticity, halo triaxiality, and the relative orientations of the halos are less important. Such high-mass, multiple-halo lines of sight exist in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
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