Phase variation (PV) of surface molecules and other phenotypes is a major adaptive strategy of pathogenic and commensal bacteria. Phase variants are produced at high frequencies and in a reversible ...manner by hypermutation or hypervariable methylation in specific regions of the genome. The major mechanisms of PV involve site-specific recombination, homologous recombination, simple sequence DNA repeat tracts or epigenetic modification by the dam methylase. PV rates of some of these mechanisms are subject to the influence of genome maintenance pathways such as DNA replication, recombination and repair while others are independent of these pathways. For each of these mechanisms, the rate of generation of phase variants is controlled by intrinsic and dispensable factors. These factors can impart environmental regulation on switching rates while many factors are subject to heterogeneity both within isolates of a species and between species. A major gap in our understanding is whether these environmental and epidemiological variations in PV rate have a major impact on fitness. Experimental approaches to studying the biological relevance of differing PV rates are being developed, and a recent intriguing finding is of a co-ordination of switching rates in the phase variable P-pili of uropathogenic bacteria.
ASTEP 400, the main instrument of the ASTEP (Antarctica Search for Transiting ExoPlanets) programme, is a 40 cm telescope, designed to withstand the harsh conditions in Antarctica, achieving a ...photometric accuracy of a fraction of millimagnitude on hourly time-scales for planet-hosting southern bright (R ∼ 12 mag) stars. We review the performances of this instrument, describe its operating conditions, and present results from the analysis of observations obtained during its first three years (2010–2012) of operation, before its repatriation in 2014. During this time, we observed a total of 22 stellar fields (1° × 1° field of view). Each field, in which we measured stars up to magnitude R = 18 mag, was observed continuously during ∼7 to ∼30 d. More than 200 000 frames were recorded and 310 000 stars processed, using an implementation of the optimal image subtraction photometry algorithm. We found 43 planetary transit candidates. 20 of these candidates were observed using spectroscopic follow-ups including four targets classified as good planet candidates. Our results demonstrate that accurate near-continuous photometric observations are achievable from the Concordia station at Dome C in Antarctica, even if we were not able to reach the nominal photometric precision of the instrument. We conducted a correlation analysis between the rms noise and a large number of external parameters and found that source of the ∼1 mmag correlated noise is not obvious and does not depend on a single parameter. However, our analysis provided some hints and guidance to increase the photometric accuracy of the instrument. These improvements should equip any future telescope operating in Antarctica.
We report detections and constraints for the near-infrared Ks band secondary eclipses of seven hot-Jupiters using the IRIS2 infrared camera on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Eclipses in the Ks band ...for WASP-18b and WASP-36b have been measured for the first time. We also present new measurements for the eclipses of WASP-4b, WASP-5b, and WASP-46b, as well as upper limits for the eclipse depths of WASP-2b and WASP-76b. In particular, two full eclipses of WASP-46b were observed, allowing us to demonstrate the repeatability of our observations via independent analyses on each eclipse. Significant numbers of eclipse depths for hot-Jupiters have now been measured in both Ks and the four Spitzer IRAC bandpasses. We discuss these measurements in the context of the broad-band colours and brightness temperatures of the hot-Jupiter atmosphere distribution. Specifically, we re-examine the proposed temperature dichotomy between the most irradiated, and mildly irradiated planets. We find no evidence for multiple clusters in the brightness temperature–equilibrium temperature distributions in any of these bandpasses, suggesting a continuous distribution of heat re-emission and circulation characteristics for these planets.
We present multiwavelength photometric monitoring of WD 1145+017, a white dwarf exhibiting periodic dimming events interpreted to be the transits of orbiting, disintegrating planetesimals. Our ...observations include the first set of near-infrared light curves for the object, obtained on multiple nights over the span of 1 month, and recorded multiple transit events with depths varying between ~20 and 50 per cent. Simultaneous near-infrared and optical observations of the deepest and longest duration transit event were obtained on two epochs with the Anglo-Australian Telescope and three optical facilities, over the wavelength range of 0.5-1.2 ...m. These observations revealed no measurable difference in transit depths for multiple photometric pass bands, allowing us to place a 2... lower limit of 0.8 ...m on the grain size in the putative transiting debris cloud. This conclusion is consistent with the spectral energy distribution of the system, which can be fit with an optically thin debris disc with minimum particle sizes of 10... ...m. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae/symbols omitted.)
The GALAH survey: scientific motivation De Silva, G. M; Freeman, K. C; Bland-Hawthorn, J ...
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
05/2015, Letnik:
449, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The Galactic Archaeology with HERMES (GALAH) survey is a large high-resolution spectroscopic survey using the newly commissioned High Efficiency and Resolution Multi-Element Spectrograph (HERMES) on ...the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The HERMES spectrograph provides high-resolution (R ∼ 28 000) spectra in four passbands for 392 stars simultaneously over a 2 deg field of view. The goal of the survey is to unravel the formation and evolutionary history of the Milky Way, using fossil remnants of ancient star formation events which have been disrupted and are now dispersed throughout the Galaxy. Chemical tagging seeks to identify such dispersed remnants solely from their common and unique chemical signatures; these groups are unidentifiable from their spatial, photometric or kinematic properties. To carry out chemical tagging, the GALAH survey will acquire spectra for a million stars down to V ∼ 14. The HERMES spectra of FGK stars contain absorption lines from 29 elements including light proton-capture elements, α-elements, odd-Z elements, iron-peak elements and n-capture elements from the light and heavy s-process and the r-process. This paper describes the motivation and planned execution of the GALAH survey, and presents some results on the first-light performance of HERMES.
Abstract
The relative rarity of giant planets around low-mass stars compared with solar-type stars is a key prediction from the core-accretion planet formation theory. In this paper we report on the ...discovery of four gas giant planets that transit low-mass late K and early M dwarfs. The planets HATS-74Ab (TOI 737b), HATS-75b (TOI 552b), HATS-76b (TOI 555b), and HATS-77b (TOI 730b) were all discovered from the HATSouth photometric survey and follow-up using TESS and other photometric facilities. We use the new ESPRESSO facility at the VLT to confirm systems and measure their masses. We find that these planets have masses of 1.46 ± 0.14
M
J, 0.491 ± 0.039
M
J, 2.629 ± 0.089
M
J, and
1.374
−
0.074
+
0.100
M
J, respectively, and radii of 1.032 ± 0.021
R
J, 0.884 ± 0.013
R
J, 1.079 ± 0.031
R
J, and 1.165 ± 0.021
R
J, respectively. The planets all orbit close to their host stars with orbital periods ranging from 1.7319 days to 3.0876 days. With further work, we aim to test core-accretion theory by using these and further discoveries to quantify the occurrence rate of giant planets around low-mass host stars.
ABSTRACT
We present the detection of sodium absorption in the atmosphere of the extrasolar planet WASP‐17b, an inflated ‘hot Jupiter’ in a tight orbit around an F6 dwarf. In‐transit observations of ...WASP‐17 made with the Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle (MIKE) spectrograph on the 6.5‐m Magellan Telescope were analysed for excess planetary atmospheric absorption in the Na i ‘D’ doublet spectral region. Using the interstellar sodium absorption lines as reference, we detect a 0.58 ± 0.13 per cent transit signal, with 4.5σ confidence, at 1.5 Å bandwidth around the stellar sodium absorption feature. This result is consistent with the previous Very Large Telescope detection of sodium in WASP‐17b, confirming that the planet has a highly inflated atmosphere.
Abstract
We report measurements of the sky-projected spin–orbit angles for three transiting hot Jupiters, two of which are in nearly polar orbits, WASP-100b and WASP-109b, and a third in a ...low-obliquity orbit, WASP-72b. We obtained these measurements by observing the Rossiter–McLaughlin effect over the course of the transits from high-resolution spectroscopic observations made with the CYCLOPS2 optical fiber bundle system feeding the UCLES spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The resulting sky-projected spin–orbit angles are
,
, and
for WASP-72b, WASP-100b, and WASP-109b, respectively. These results suggests that WASP-100b and WASP-109b are on highly inclined orbits tilted nearly 90
◦
from their host star’s equator, while the orbit of WASP-72b appears to be well-aligned. WASP-72b is a typical hot Jupiter orbiting a mid-late F star (F7 with
T
eff
= 6250 ± 120 K). WASP-100b and WASP-109b are highly irradiated bloated hot Jupiters orbiting hot early-mid F stars (F2 with
T
eff
= 6900 ± 120 K and F4 with
T
eff
= 6520 ± 140 K), making them consistent with the trends observed for the majority of stars hosting planets on high-obliquity orbits.
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