Guillem Anglada-Escudé

A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri

At a distance of 1.295 parsecs, the red dwarf Proxima Centauri (α Centauri C, GL 551, HIP 70890 or simply Proxima) is the Sun’s closest stellar neighbour and one of the best-studied low-mass stars. It has an effective temperature of only around 3,050 kelvin, a luminosity of 0.15 per cent of that of the Sun, a measured radius of 14 per cent of the radius of the Sun and a mass of about 12 per cent of the mass of the Sun. Although Proxima is considered a moderately active star, its rotation period is about 83 days (ref. 3) and its quiescent activity levels and X-ray luminosity are comparable to those of the Sun. Here we report observations that reveal the presence of a small planet with a minimum mass of about 1.3 Earth masses orbiting Proxima with a period of approximately 11.2 days at a semi-major-axis distance of around 0.05 astronomical units. Its equilibrium temperature is within the range where water could be liquid on its surface.

THE BROWN DWARF KINEMATICS PROJECT (BDKP). III. PARALLAXES FOR 70 ULTRACOOL DWARFS

We report parallax measurements for 70 ultracool dwarfs (UCDs) including 11 late-M, 32 L, and 27 T dwarfs. In this sample, 14 M and L dwarfs exhibit low surface gravity features, 6 are close binary systems, and 2 are metal-poor subdwarfs. We combined our new measurements with 114 previously published UCD parallaxes and optical-mid-IR photometry to examine trends in spectral-type/absolute magnitude, and color-color diagrams. We report new polynomial relations between spectral type and MJHK . Including resolved L/T transition binaries in the relations, we find no reason to differentiate between a bright (unresolved binary) and a faint (single source) sample across the L/T boundary. Isolating early T dwarfs, we find that the brightening of T0-T4 sources is prominent in MJ where there is a [1.2-1.4]?mag difference. A similar yet dampened brightening of [0.3-0.5]?mag happens at MH and a plateau or dimming of [?0.2 to ?0.3]?mag is seen in MK . Comparison with evolutionary models that vary gravity, metallicity, and cloud thickness verifies that for L into T dwarfs, decreasing cloud thickness reproduces brown dwarf near-IR color-magnitude diagrams. However we find that a near constant temperature of 1200 ?100 K along a narrow spectral subtype of T0-T4 is required to account for the brightening and color-magnitude diagram of the L-dwarf/T-dwarf transition. There is a significant population of both L and T dwarfs which are red or potentially ultra-cloudy compared to the models, many of which are known to be young indicating a correlation between enhanced photospheric dust and youth. For the low surface gravity or young companion L dwarfs we find that 8 out of 10 are at least [0.2-1.0]?mag underluminous in MJH and/or MK compared to equivalent spectral type objects. We speculate that this is a consequence of increased dust opacity and conclude that low surface gravity L dwarfs require a completely new spectral-type/absolute magnitude polynomial for analysis.

ABSOLUTE PROPERTIES OF THE LOW-MASS ECLIPSING BINARY CM DRACONIS

Spectroscopic and eclipsing binary systems offer the best means for determining accurate physical properties of stars, including their masses and radii. The data available for low-mass stars have yielded firm evidence that stellar structure models predict smaller radii and higher effective temperatures than observed, but the number of systems with detailed analyses is still small. In this paper, we present a complete reanalysis of one of such eclipsing systems, CM Dra, composed of two dM4.5 stars. New and existing light curves as well as a radial velocity curve are modeled to measure the physical properties of both components. The masses and radii determined for the components of CM Dra are M 1 = 0.2310 ? 0.0009 M ?, M 2 = 0.2141 ? 0.0010M ?, R 1 = 0.2534 ? 0.0019 R ?, and R 2 = 0.2396 ? 0.0015 R ?. With relative uncertainties well below the 1% level, these values constitute the most accurate properties to date for fully convective stars. This makes CM Dra a valuable benchmark for testing theoretical models. In comparing our measurements with theory, we confirm the discrepancies previously reported for other low-mass eclipsing binaries. These discrepancies seem likely to be due to the effects of magnetic activity. We find that the orbit of this system is slightly eccentric, and we have made use of eclipse timings spanning three decades to infer the apsidal motion and other related properties.

A planetary system around the nearby M dwarf GJ 667C with at least one super-earth in its habitable zone

We re-analyze 4 years of HARPS spectra of the nearby M1.5 dwarf GJ 667C available through the European Southern Observatory public archive. The new radial velocity (RV) measurements were obtained using a new data analysis technique that derives the Doppler measurement and other instrumental effects using a least-squares approach. Combining these new 143 measurements with 41 additional RVs from the Magellan/Planet Finder Spectrograph and Keck/High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer spectrometers reveals three additional signals beyond the previously reported 7.2 day candidate, with periods of 28 days, 75 days, and a secular trend consistent with the presence of a gas giant (period ~10 years). The 28 day signal implies a planet candidate with a minimum mass of 4.5 M ⊕ orbiting well within the canonical definition of the stars liquid water habitable zone (HZ), that is, the region around the star at which an Earth-like planet could sustain liquid water on its surface. Still, the ultimate water supporting capability of this candidate depends on properties that are unknown such as its albedo, atmospheric composition, and interior dynamics. The 75 day signal is less certain, being significantly affected by aliasing interactions among a potential 91 day signal, and the likely rotation period of the star at 105 days detected in two activity indices. GJ 667C is the common proper motion companion to the GJ 667AB binary, which is metal-poor compared to the Sun. The presence of a super-Earth in the HZ of a metal-poor M dwarf in a triple star system supports the evidence that such worlds should be ubiquitous in the Galaxy.

IDENTIFYING THE YOUNG LOW-MASS STARS WITHIN 25 pc. II. DISTANCES, KINEMATICS, AND GROUP MEMBERSHIP*

We have conducted a kinematic study of 165 young M dwarfs with ages of 300?Myr. Our sample is composed of stars and brown dwarfs with spectral types ranging from K7 to L0, detected by ROSAT and with photometric distances of 25?pc assuming that the stars are single and on the main sequence. In order to find stars kinematically linked to known young moving groups (YMGs), we measured radial velocities for the complete sample with Keck and CFHT optical spectroscopy and trigonometric parallaxes for 75 of the M dwarfs with the CAPSCam instrument on the du Pont 2.5?m Telescope. Due to their youthful overluminosity and unresolved binarity, the original photometric distances for our sample underestimated the distances by 70% on average, excluding two extremely young (3?Myr) objects found to have distances beyond a few hundred parsecs. We searched for kinematic matches to 14 reported YMGs and identified 10 new members of the AB Dor YMG and 2 of the Ursa Majoris group. Additional possible candidates include six Castor, four Ursa Majoris, two AB Dor members, and one member each of the Her-Lyr and ? Pic groups. Our sample also contains 27 young low-mass stars and 4 brown dwarfs with ages 150?Myr that are not associated with any known YMG. We identified an additional 15 stars that are kinematic matches to one of the YMGs, but the ages from spectroscopic diagnostics and/or the positions on the sky do not match. These warn against grouping stars together based only on kinematics and that a confluence of evidence is required to claim that a group of stars originated from the same star-forming event.

The HARPS-TERRA Project. I. Description of the Algorithms, Performance, and New Measurements on a Few Remarkable Stars Observed by HARPS

Doppler spectroscopy has uncovered or confirmed all the known planets orbiting nearby stars. Two main techniques are used to obtain precision Doppler measurements at optical wavelengths. The first approach is the gas cell method, which consists of least-squares matching of the spectrum of iodine imprinted on the spectrum of the star. The second method relies on the construction of a stabilized spectrograph externally calibrated in wavelength. The most precise stabilized spectrometer in operation is the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), operated by the European Southern Observatory in La Silla Observatory, Chile. The Doppler measurements obtained with HARPS are typically obtained using the cross-correlation function (CCF) technique. This technique consists of multiplying the stellar spectrum by a weighted binary mask and finding the minimum of the product as a function of the Doppler shift. It is known that CCF is suboptimal in exploiting the Doppler information in the stellar spectrum. Here we describe an algorithm to obtain precision radial velocity measurements using least-squares matching of each observed spectrum to a high signal-to-noise ratio template derived from the same observations. This algorithm is implemented in our software HARPS-TERRA (Template-Enhanced Radial velocity Re-analysis Application). New radial velocity measurements on a representative sample of stars observed by HARPS are used to illustrate the benefits of the proposed method. We show that, compared with CCF, template matching provides a significant improvement in accuracy, especially when applied to M dwarfs.

How Eccentric Orbital Solutions Can Hide Planetary Systems in 2:1 Resonant Orbits

The Doppler technique measures the reflex radial motion of a star induced by the presence of companions and is the most successful method to detect exoplanets. If several planets are present, their signals will appear combined in the radial motion of the star, leading to potential misinterpretations of the data. Specifically, two planets in 2:1 resonant orbits can mimic the signal of a single planet in an eccentric orbit. We quantify the implications of this statistical degeneracy for a representative sample of the reported single exoplanets with available data sets, finding that (1) around 35% of the published eccentric one-planet solutions are statistically indistinguishable from planetary systems in 2:1 orbital resonance, (2) another 40% cannot be statistically distinguished from a circular orbital solution, and (3) planets with masses comparable to Earth could be hidden in known orbital solutions of eccentric super-Earths and Neptune mass planets.

Habitable-zone super-Earth candidate in a six-planet system around the K2.5V star HD 40307

Context. The K2.5 dwarf HD 40307 has been reported to host three super-Earths. The system lacks massive planets and is therefore a potential candidate for having additional low-mass planetary companions. Aims. We re-derive Doppler measurements from public HARPS spectra of HD 40307 to confirm the significance of the reported signals using independent data analysis methods. We also investigate these measurements for additional low-amplitude signals. Methods. We used Bayesian analysis of our radial velocities to estimate the probability densities of different model parameters. We also estimated the relative probabilities of models with differing numbers of Keplerian signals and verified their signifi cance using periodogram analyses. We investigated the relation of the detected signals with the chromospheric emission of the star. As previously reported for other objects, we found that radial velocity si gnals correlated with the S-index are strongly wavelength dependent. Results. We identify two additional clear signals with periods of 34 and 51 days, both corresponding to planet candidates with minimum masses a few times that of the Earth. An additional sixth candidate is initially found at a period of 320 days. However, this signal correlates strongly with the chromospheric emission from the star and is also strongly wavelength dependent. When analysing the red half of the spectra only, the five putative planetary s ignals are recovered together with a very significant period icity at about 200 days. This signal has a similar amplitude as the other new signals reported in the current work and corresponds to a planet candidate with M sin i∼ 7 M⊕ (HD 40307 g). Conclusions. We show that Doppler measurements can be filtered for activit y-induced signals if enough photons and a suffi cient wavelength interval are available. If the signal correspon ding to HD 40307 g is a genuine Doppler signal of planetary origin, this candidate planet might be capable of supporting liquid water on its surface according to the current definition of the liq uid water habitable zone around a star and is not likely to suffer from tidal locking. Also, at an angular separation of∼ 46 mas, HD 40307 g would be a primary target for a future space-based direct-imaging mission.

The habitability of Proxima Centauri b. I. Irradiation, rotation and volatile inventory from formation to the present

Proxima b is a planet with a minimum mass of 1.3 MEarth orbiting within the habitable zone (HZ) of Proxima Centauri, a very low-mass, active star and the Suns closest neighbor. Here we investigate a number of factors related to the potential habitability of Proxima b and its ability to maintain liquid water on its surface. We set the stage by estimating the current high-energy irradiance of the planet and show that the planet currently receives 30 times more EUV radiation than Earth and 250 times more X-rays. We compute the time evolution of the stars spectrum, which is essential for modeling the flux received over Proxima bs lifetime. We also show that Proxima bs obliquity is likely null and its spin is either synchronous or in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, depending on the planets eccentricity and level of triaxiality. Next we consider the evolution of Proxima bs water inventory. We use our spectral energy distribution to compute the hydrogen loss from the planet with an improved energy-limited escape formalism. Despite the high level of stellar activity we find that Proxima b is likely to have lost less than an Earth oceans worth of hydrogen before it reached the HZ 100-200 Myr after its formation. The largest uncertainty in our work is the initial water budget, which is not constrained by planet formation models. We conclude that Proxima b is a viable candidate habitable planet.

State of the Field: Extreme Precision Radial Velocities*

The Second Workshop on Extreme Precision Radial Velocities defined circa 2015 the state of the art Doppler precision and identified the critical path challenges for reaching 10 cm s^(−1) measurement precision. The presentations and discussion of key issues for instrumentation and data analysis and the workshop recommendations for achieving this bold precision are summarized here. Beginning with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher spectrograph, technological advances for precision radial velocity (RV) measurements have focused on building extremely stable instruments. To reach still higher precision, future spectrometers will need to improve upon the state of the art, producing even higher fidelity spectra. This should be possible with improved environmental control, greater stability in the illumination of the spectrometer optics, better detectors, more precise wavelength calibration, and broader bandwidth spectra. Key data analysis challenges for the precision RV community include distinguishing center of mass (COM) Keplerian motion from photospheric velocities (time correlated noise) and the proper treatment of telluric contamination. Success here is coupled to the instrument design, but also requires the implementation of robust statistical and modeling techniques. COM velocities produce Doppler shifts that affect every line identically, while photospheric velocities produce line profile asymmetries with wavelength and temporal dependencies that are different from Keplerian signals. Exoplanets are an important subfield of astronomy and there has been an impressive rate of discovery over the past two decades. However, higher precision RV measurements are required to serve as a discovery technique for potentially habitable worlds, to confirm and characterize detections from transit missions, and to provide mass measurements for other space-based missions. The future of exoplanet science has very different trajectories depending on the precision that can ultimately be achieved with Doppler measurements.