GJ 3470b is a warm Neptune transiting an M-dwarf star at the edge of the evaporation desert. It offers the possibility of investigating how low-mass, close-in exoplanets evolve under the irradiation ...from their host stars. We observed three transits of GJ 3470b in the Lyman-α line with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) as part of the Panchromatic Comparative Exoplanet Treasury (PanCET) program. Absorption signatures are detected with similar properties in all three independent epochs, with absorption depths of 35 ± 7% in the blue wing of the line, and 23 ± 5% in the red wing. The repeatability of these signatures, their phasing with the planet transit, and the radial velocity of the absorbing gas allow us to conclude that there is an extended upper atmosphere of neutral hydrogen around GJ 3470b. We determine from our observations the stellar radiation pressure and XUV irradiation from GJ 3470 and use them to perform numerical simulations of the upper atmosphere of GJ 3470b with the EVaporating Exoplanets (EVE) code. The unusual redshifted signature can be explained by the damping wings of dense layers of neutral hydrogen that extend beyond the Roche lobe and are elongated in the direction of the planet motion. This structure could correspond to a shocked layer of planetary material formed by the collision of the expanding thermosphere with the wind of the star. The blueshifted signature is well explained by neutral hydrogen atoms escaping at rates of about 1010 g s−1 that are blown away from the star by its strong radiation pressure and are quickly photoionized, resulting in a smaller exosphere than that of the warm Neptune GJ 436b. The stronger escape from GJ 3470b, however, may have led to the loss of about 4–35% of its current mass over its ~2 Gyr lifetime.
We report the discovery of eight new giant planets, and updated orbits for four known planets, orbiting dwarf and subgiant stars using the CORALIE, HARPS, and MIKE instruments as part of the ...Calan-Hertfordshire Extrasolar Planet Search. The planets have masses in the range 1.1-5.4 M sub( J)'s, orbital periods from 40 to 2900 d, and eccentricities from 0.0 to 0.6. They include a double-planet system orbiting the most massive star in our sample (HD147873), two eccentric giant planets (HD128356b and HD154672b), and a rare 14 Herculis analogue (HD224538b). We highlight some population correlations from the sample of radial velocity detected planets orbiting nearby stars, including the mass function exponential distribution, confirmation of the growing body of evidence that low-mass planets tend to be found orbiting more metal-poor stars than giant planets, and a possible period-metallicity correlation for planets with masses >0.1 M sub( J), based on a metallicity difference of 0.16 dex between the population of planets with orbital periods less than 100 d and those with orbital periods greater than 100 d.
ABSTRACT
We present two transits of the hot‐Jupiter exoplanet XO‐2b using the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). The time series observations were performed using long‐slit spectroscopy of XO‐2 and a ...nearby reference star with the Optical System for Imaging and low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy (OSIRIS) instrument, enabling differential spectrophotometric transit light curves capable of measuring the exoplanet's transmission spectrum. Two optical low‐resolution grisms were used to cover the optical wavelength range from 3800 to 9300 Å. We find that sub‐mmag‐level slit losses between the target and reference star prevent full optical transmission spectra from being constructed, limiting our analysis to differential absorption depths over ∼1000 Å regions. Wider long slits or multi‐object grism spectroscopy with wide masks will likely prove effective in minimizing the observed slit‐loss trends. During both transits, we detect significant absorption in the planetary atmosphere of XO‐2b using a 50‐Å bandpass centred on the Na i doublet, with absorption depths of Δ(Rpl/R★)2 = 0.049 ± 0.017 per cent using the R500R grism and 0.047 ± 0.011 per cent using the R500B grism (combined 5.2σ significance from both transits). The sodium feature is unresolved in our low‐resolution spectra, with detailed modelling also likely ruling out significant line‐wing absorption over an ∼800 Å region surrounding the doublet. Combined with narrow‐band photometric measurements, XO‐2b is the first hot Jupiter with evidence for both sodium and potassium present in the planet's atmosphere.
Context.
The solar telescope connected to HARPS-N has been observing the Sun since the summer of 2015. Such a high-cadence, long-baseline data set is crucial for understanding spurious ...radial-velocity signals induced by our Sun and by the instrument. On the instrumental side, this data set allowed us to detect sub- m s
−1
systematics that needed to be corrected for.
Aims.
The goals of this manuscript are to (i) present a new data reduction software for HARPS-N, (ii) demonstrate the improvement brought by this new software during the first three years of the HARPS-N solar data set, and (iii) release all the obtained solar products, from extracted spectra to precise radial velocities.
Methods.
To correct for the instrumental systematics observed in the data reduced with the current version of the HARPS-N data reduction software (DRS version 3.7), we adapted the newly available ESPRESSO DRS (version 2.2.3) to HARPS-N and developed new optimised recipes for the spectrograph. We then compared the first three years of HARPS-N solar data reduced with the current and new DRS.
Results.
The most significant improvement brought by the new DRS is a strong decrease in the day-to-day radial-velocity scatter, from 1.27 to 1.07 m s
−1
; this is thanks to a more robust method to derive wavelength solutions, but also to the use of calibrations closer in time. The newly derived solar radial-velocities are also better correlated with the chromospheric activity level of the Sun in the long term, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.93 compared to 0.77 before, which is expected from our understanding of stellar signals. Finally, we also discuss how HARPS-N spectral ghosts contaminate the measurement of the calcium activity index, and we present an efficient technique to derive an index free of instrumental systematics.
Conclusions.
This paper presents a new data reduction software for HARPS-N and demonstrates its improvements, mainly in terms of radial-velocity precision, when applied to the first three years of the HARPS-N solar data set. Those newly reduced solar data, representing an unprecedented time series of 34 550 high-resolution spectra and precise radial velocities, are released alongside this paper. Those data are crucial to understand stellar activity signals in solar-type stars further and develop the mitigating techniques that will allow us to detect other Earths.
The use of selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) in the biomedical area has been increasing as an alternative to the growing bacterial resistance to antibiotics. In this research, SeNPs were synthesized by ...green synthesis using ascorbic acid (AsAc) as a reducing agent and methanolic extract of
L. flowers as a stabilizer. Characterization of SeNPs was performed by UV-vis spectrophotometry, infrared spectrophotometry (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. SeNPs of 40-60 nm and spherical morphologies were obtained. The antibacterial activity of marigold extracts and fractions was evaluated by disk diffusion methodology. The evaluation of SeNPs at different incubation times was performed through the colony-forming unit (CFU) count, in both cases against
,
, and
bacteria. Partial antibacterial activity was observed with methanolic extracts of marigold leaves and flowers and total inhibition with SeNPs from 2 h for
, 1 h for
, and 30 min for
In addition, SeNPs were found to exhibit antioxidant activity. The results indicate that SeNPs present a potentiated effect of both antimicrobial and antioxidant activity compared to the individual use of marigold extracts or sodium selenite (Na
SeO
). Their application emerges as an alternative for the control of clinical pathogens.
We present Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) optical transit narrowband photometry of the hot-Jupiter exoplanet XO-2b using the OSIRIS instrument. This unique instrument has the capabilities to deliver ...high-cadence narrowband photometric lightcurves, allowing us to probe the atmospheric composition of hot Jupiters from the ground. The observations were taken during three transit events that cover four wavelengths at spectral resolutions near 500, necessary for observing atmospheric features, and have near-photon limited sub-mmag precisions. Precision narrowband photometry on a large aperture telescope allows for atmospheric transmission spectral features to be observed for exoplanets around much fainter stars than those of the well studied targets HD 209458b and HD 189733b, providing access to the majority of known transiting planets. For XO-2b, we measure planet-to-star radius contrasts of Rpl/R⋆ = 0.10508 ± 0.00052 at 6792 Å, 0.10640 ± 0.00058 at 7582 Å, and 0.10686 ± 0.00060 at 7664.9 Å, and 0.10362 ± 0.00051 at 8839 Å. These measurements reveal significant spectral features at two wavelengths, with an absorption level of 0.067 ± 0.016% at 7664.9 Å caused by atmospheric potassium in the line core (a 4.1-σ significance level), and an absorption level of 0.058 ± 0.016% at 7582 Å, (a 3.6-σ significance level). When comparing our measurements to hot-Jupiter atmospheric models, we find good agreement with models that are dominated in the optical by alkali metals. This is the first evidence for potassium in an extrasolar planet, an element that has along with sodium long been supposed to be a dominant source of opacity at optical wavelengths for hot Jupiters.
ABSTRACT
To push the radial velocity (RV) exoplanet detection threshold, it is crucial to find more reliable RV extraction methods. The least-squares deconvolution (LSD) technique has been used to ...infer the stellar magnetic flux from spectropolarimetric data for the past two decades. It relies on the assumption that stellar absorption lines are similar in shape. Although this assumption is simplistic, LSD provides a good model for intensity spectra and likewise an estimate for their Doppler shift. We present the multi-mask least-squares deconvolution (MM-LSD) RV extraction pipeline that extracts the RV from two-dimensional echelle-order spectra using LSD with multiple tailored masks after continuum normalization and telluric absorption line correction. The flexibility of LSD allows to exclude spectral lines or pixels at will, providing a means to exclude variable lines or pixels affected by instrumental problems. The MM-LSD pipeline was tested on HARPS-N data for the Sun and selected well-observed stars with 5.7 < Vmag < 12.6. For FGK-type stars with median signal-to-noise ratio above 100, the pipeline delivered RV time series with on average 12 per cent lower scatter as compared to the HARPS-N RV extraction pipeline based on the cross-correlation function technique. The MM-LSD pipeline may be used as a standalone RV code, or modified and extended to extract a proxy for the magnetic field strength.
Context.
The extreme contrast ratios between stars and their planets at optical wavelengths make it challenging to isolate the light reflected by exoplanet atmospheres. Yet, these reflective ...properties reveal key processes occurring in the atmospheres, and they also span wavelengths that include the potential O
2
biosignature. High resolution cross-correlation spectroscopy (HRCCS) offers a robust avenue for developing techniques to extract exoplanet reflection spectra.
Aims.
We aimed to extract the optical reflected light spectrum of the non-transiting hot Jupiter 51 Pegasi b by adapting techniques designed to remove tellurics in infrared HRCCS to instead remove optical stellar lines. Importantly, we investigated the as of yet neglected impact of the broadening of the reflected host star spectrum due to the difference between the stellar rotation and the planet’s orbital velocity.
Methods.
We used 484,
R
= 115 000 optical spectra of 51 Pegasi b from HARPS-N and HARPS, which we aligned to the exact stellar rest frame, in order to effectively remove the contaminating host star. However, some stellar residuals remained, likely due to stellar activity. We cross-correlated with an appropriately broadened synthetic stellar model to search for the planet’s Doppler-shifting spectrum.
Results.
We detect no significant reflected light from 51 Pegasi b, and report a signal-to-noise (
S
∕
N
) = 3 upper limit on the contrast ratio of 76.0 ppm (7.60 × 10
−5
) when including broadening, and 24.0 ppm (2.40 × 10
−5
) without. These upper limits rule out radius and albedo combinations of previously claimed detections.
Conclusions.
Broadening can significantly impact the ability of HRCCS to extract reflected light spectra and it must be considered when determining the contrast ratio, radius, and albedo of the planet. Asynchronous systems (
P
rot,⋆
≠
P
orb
) are most affected, including most hot Jupiters as well as Earth-size planets in the traditional habitable zones of some M-dwarfs.
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