Many of the known hot Jupiters are formally unstable to tidal orbital decay. The only hot Jupiter for which orbital decay has been directly detected is WASP-12, for which transit-timing measurements ...spanning more than a decade have revealed that the orbital period is decreasing at a rate of , corresponding to a reduced tidal quality factor of about 2 × 105. Here, we present a compilation of transit-timing data for WASP-12 and 11 other systems that are especially favorable for detecting orbital decay: KELT-16; WASP-18, 19, 43, 72, 103, 114, and 122; HAT-P-23; HATS-18; and OGLE-TR-56. For most of these systems we present new data that extend the time baseline over which observations have been performed. None of the systems besides WASP-12 display convincing evidence for period changes, with typical upper limits on dP/dt on the order of 10−9 or 10−10, and lower limits on the reduced tidal quality factor on the order of 105. One possible exception is WASP-19, which shows a statistically significant trend, although it may be a spurious effect of starspot activity. Further observations are encouraged.
One of the possible signs of life on distant habitable exoplanets is the red-edge, which is a rise in the reflectivity of planets between visible and near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. Previous studies ...suggested the possibility that the red-edge position for habitable exoplanets around M-dwarfs may be shifted to a longer wavelength than that for Earth. We investigated plausible red-edge position in terms of the light environment during the course of the evolution of phototrophs. We show that phototrophs on M-dwarf habitable exoplanets may use visible light when they first evolve in the ocean and when they first colonize the land. The adaptive evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis may eventually also use NIR radiation, by one of two photochemical reaction centers, with the other center continuing to use visible light. These "two-color" reaction centers can absorb more photons, but they will encounter difficulty in adapting to drastically changing light conditions at the boundary between land and water. NIR photosynthesis can be more productive on land, though its evolution would be preceded by the Earth-type vegetation. Thus, the red-edge position caused by photosynthetic organisms on habitable M-dwarf exoplanets could initially be similar to that on Earth and later move to a longer wavelength.
The search for habitable exoplanets in the Universe is actively ongoing in the field of astronomy. The biggest future milestone is to determine whether life exists on such habitable exoplanets. In ...that context, oxygen in the atmosphere has been considered strong evidence for the presence of photosynthetic organisms. In this paper, we show that a previously unconsidered photochemical mechanism by titanium (IV) oxide (titania) can produce abiotic oxygen from liquid water under near ultraviolet (NUV) lights on the surface of exoplanets. Titania works as a photocatalyst to dissociate liquid water in this process. This mechanism offers a different source of a possibility of abiotic oxygen in atmospheres of exoplanets from previously considered photodissociation of water vapor in upper atmospheres by extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light. Our order-of-magnitude estimation shows that possible amounts of oxygen produced by this abiotic mechanism can be comparable with or even more than that in the atmosphere of the current Earth, depending on the amount of active surface area for this mechanism. We conclude that titania may act as a potential source of false signs of life on habitable exoplanets.
Abstract
Terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M-dwarf stars are promising targets for transmission spectroscopy with existing or near-future instrumentation. The atmospheric composition of such rocky ...planets remains an open question, especially given the high X-ray and ultraviolet flux from their host M dwarfs that can drive atmospheric escape. The 1.3
R
⊕
exoplanet GJ 486b (
T
eq
∼ 700 K), orbiting an M3.5 star, is expected to have one of the strongest transmission spectroscopy signals among known terrestrial exoplanets. We observed three transits of GJ 486b using three different high-resolution spectrographs: IRD on Subaru, IGRINS on Gemini-South, and SPIRou on the Canada–France–Hawai’i Telescope. We searched for atmospheric absorption from a wide variety of molecular species via the cross-correlation method, but did not detect any robust atmospheric signals. Nevertheless, our observations are sufficiently sensitive to rule out several clear atmospheric scenarios via injection and recovery tests, and extend comparative exoplanetology into the terrestrial regime. Our results suggest that GJ 486b does not possess a clear H
2
/He-dominated atmosphere, nor a clear 100% water-vapor atmosphere. Other secondary atmospheres with high mean molecular weights or H
2
/He-dominated atmospheres with clouds remain possible. Our findings provide further evidence suggesting that terrestrial planets orbiting M-dwarf stars may experience significant atmospheric loss.
Abstract
Detailed chemical analyses of M dwarfs are scarce but necessary to constrain the formation environment and internal structure of planets being found around them. We present elemental ...abundances of 13 M dwarfs (2900 <
T
eff
< 3500 K) observed in the Subaru/IRD planet search project. They are mid- to late-M dwarfs whose abundance of individual elements has not been well studied. We use the high-resolution (∼70,000) near-infrared (970–1750 nm) spectra to measure the abundances of Na, Mg, Si, K, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, and Sr by the line-by-line analysis based on model atmospheres, with typical errors ranging from 0.2 dex for Fe/H to 0.3–0.4 dex for other X/H. We measure radial velocities from the spectra and combine them with Gaia astrometry to calculate the Galactocentric space velocities
UVW
. The resulting Fe/H values agree with previous estimates based on medium-resolution
K
-band spectroscopy, showing a wide distribution of metallicity (−0.6 < Fe/H < +0.4). The abundance ratios of individual elements X/Fe are generally aligned with the solar values in all targets. While the X/Fe distributions are comparable to those of nearby FGK stars, most of which belong to the thin-disk population, the most metal-poor object, GJ 699, could be a thick-disk star. The
UVW
velocities also support this. The results raise the prospect that near-infrared spectra of M dwarfs obtained in the planet search projects can be used to grasp the trend of elemental abundances and the Galactic stellar population of nearby M dwarfs.
Abstract
Remote sensing of the Earth has demonstrated that photosynthesis is traceable as the vegetation red edge (VRE), which is a steep rise in the reflection spectrum of vegetation, and as ...solar-induced fluorescence. This study examines the detectability of biological fluorescence from two types of photosynthetic pigments, chlorophylls (Chls) and bacteriochlorophylls (BChls), on Earthlike planets with oxygen-rich/poor and anoxic atmospheres around the Sun and M dwarfs. Atmospheric absorption, such as H
2
O, CH
4
, O
2
, and O
3
, and the VRE obscure the fluorescence emissions from Chls and BChls. We find that the BChl-based fluorescence for wavelengths of 1000–1100 nm, assuming the spectrum of BChl
b
–bearing purple bacteria, could provide a suitable biosignature, but only in the absence of water cloud coverage or other strong absorbers near 1000 nm. The Chl fluorescence is weaker for several reasons, e.g., spectral blending with the VRE. The apparent reflectance excess is greatly increased in both the Chl and BChl cases around TRAPPIST-1, due to the fluorescence and stellar absorption lines. This could be a promising feature for detecting the fluorescence around ultracool red dwarfs using follow-up ground-based observations at high spectral resolution; however, this would require a long time around Sunlike stars, even for a LUVOIR-like space mission. Moreover, the simultaneous detection of fluorescence and the VRE is the key to identifying traces of photosynthesis, because absorption, reflectance, and fluorescence are physically connected. For further validation of the fluorescence detection, the nonlinear response of biological fluorescence as a function of light intensity could be considered.
Observational data for the hourglass-like magnetic field toward the starless dense core FeSt 1-457 were compared with a flux freezing magnetic field model. Fitting of the observed plane-of-sky ...magnetic field using the flux freezing model gave a residual angle dispersion comparable to the results based on a simple 3D parabolic model. The best-fit parameters for the flux freezing model were a line-of-sight magnetic inclination angle of γmag = 35° 15° and a core center to ambient (background) density contrast of c/ bkg = 75. The initial density for core formation ( 0) was estimated to be c/75 = 4670 cm−3, which is about one order of magnitude higher than the expected density (∼300 cm−3) for the interclump medium of the Pipe Nebula. FeSt 1-457 is likely to have been formed from the accumulation of relatively dense gas, and the relatively dense background column density of AV 5 mag supports this scenario. The initial radius (core formation radius) R0 and the initial magnetic field strength B0 were obtained to be 0.15 pc (1.64R) and 10.8-14.6 G, respectively. We found that the initial density 0 is consistent with the mean density of the nearly critical magnetized filament with magnetic field strength B0 and radius R0. The relatively dense initial condition for core formation can be naturally understood if the origin of the core is the fragmentation of magnetized filaments.
WD 1145+017 is a unique white dwarf system that has a heavily polluted atmosphere, an infrared excess from a dust disk, numerous broad absorption lines from circumstellar gas, and changing transit ...features, likely from fragments of an actively disintegrating asteroid. Here, we present results from a large photometric and spectroscopic campaign with Hubble Space Telescope, Keck, Very Large Telescope (VLT), Spitzer, and many other smaller telescopes from 2015 to 2018. Somewhat surprisingly the ultraviolet (UV) transit depths are always shallower than those in the optical. We develop a model that can quantitatively explain the observed "bluing" and confirm the previous finding that: (1) the transiting objects, circumstellar gas, and white dwarf are all aligned along our line of sight; (2) the transiting object is blocking a larger fraction of the circumstellar gas than of the white dwarf itself. Because most circumstellar lines are concentrated in the UV, the UV flux appears to be less blocked compared to the optical during a transit, leading to a shallower UV transit. This scenario is further supported by the strong anticorrelation between optical transit depth and circumstellar line strength. We have yet to detect any wavelength-dependent transits caused by the transiting material around WD 1145+017.
In this study, the detailed magnetic field structure of the dense protostellar core Barnard 335 (B335) was revealed, based on near-infrared polarimetric observations of background stars to measure ...dichroically polarized light produced by magnetically aligned dust grains in the core. Magnetic fields pervading B335 were mapped using 24 stars after subtracting unrelated ambient polarization components, revealing that they have an axisymmetrically distorted hourglass-shaped structure toward the protostellar core. On the basis of simple two- and three-dimensional magnetic field modeling, magnetic inclination angles in the plane-of-sky and line-of-sight directions were determined to be 90° 7° and 50° 10°, respectively. The total magnetic field strength of B335 was determined to be 30.2 17.7 G. The critical mass of B335, evaluated using both magnetic and thermal/turbulent support against collapse, was determined to be Mcr = 3.37 0.94 M , which is identical to the observed core mass of Mcore = 3.67 M . We thus concluded that B335 started its contraction from a condition near equilibrium. We found a linear relationship in the polarization versus extinction diagram, up to AV ∼ 15 mag toward the stars with the greatest obscuration, which verified that our observations and analysis provide an accurate depiction of the core.
ABSTRACT
WASP-33b, a hot Jupiter around a hot star, is a rare system in which nodal precession has been discovered. We updated the model for the nodal precession of WASP-33b by adding new ...observational points. Consequently, we found a motion of the nodal precession spanning 11 yr. We present homogenous Doppler tomographic analyses of eight data sets, including two new data sets from TS23 and HIDES, obtained between 2008 and 2019, to illustrate the variations in the projected spin–orbit obliquity of WASP-33b and its impact parameter. We also present its impact parameters based on photometric transit observations captured by MuSCAT in 2017 and MuSCAT2 in 2018. We derived its real spin–orbit obliquity ψ, stellar spin inclination is, and stellar gravitational quadrupole moment J2 from the time variation models of the two orbital parameters. We obtained $\psi = 108.19^{+0.95}_{-0.97}$ deg, $i_\mathit{ s} = 58.3^{+4.6}_{-4.2}$ deg, and $J_2=(1.36^{+0.15}_{-0.12}) \times 10^{-4}$. Our J2 value was slightly smaller than the theoretically predicted value, which may indicate that its actual stellar internal structure is different from the theoretical one. We derived the nodal precession speed $\dot{\theta }=0.507^{+0.025}_{-0.022}$ deg yr−1, and its period $P_{\mathrm{pre}}=709^{+33}_{-34}$ yr, and found that WASP-33b transits in front of WASP-33 for only ∼ 20 per cent of the entire nodal precession period.
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