Rebekah I. Dawson

Discovery and spectroscopy of the young jovian planet 51 Eri b with the Gemini Planet Imager

An exoplanet extracted from the bright Direct imaging of Jupiter-like exoplanets around young stars provides a glimpse into how our solar system formed. The brightness of young stars requires the use of next-generation devices such as the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI). Using the GPI, Macintosh et al. discovered a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a young star, 51 Eridani (see the Perspective by Mawet). The planet, 51 Eri b, has a methane signature and is probably the smallest exoplanet that has been directly imaged. These findings open the door to understanding solar system origins and herald the dawn of a new era in next-generation planetary imaging. Science, this issue p. 64; see also p. 39 The Gemini Planet Imager detects a Jupiter-like exoplanet orbiting the young star 51 Eridani. [Also see Perspective by Mawet] Directly detecting thermal emission from young extrasolar planets allows measurement of their atmospheric compositions and luminosities, which are influenced by their formation mechanisms. Using the Gemini Planet Imager, we discovered a planet orbiting the ~20-million-year-old star 51 Eridani at a projected separation of 13 astronomical units. Near-infrared observations show a spectrum with strong methane and water-vapor absorption. Modeling of the spectra and photometry yields a luminosity (normalized by the luminosity of the Sun) of 1.6 to 4.0 × 10−6 and an effective temperature of 600 to 750 kelvin. For this age and luminosity, “hot-start” formation models indicate a mass twice that of Jupiter. This planet also has a sufficiently low luminosity to be consistent with the “cold-start” core-accretion process that may have formed Jupiter.

GIANT PLANETS ORBITING METAL-RICH STARS SHOW SIGNATURES OF PLANET-PLANET INTERACTIONS

Gas giants orbiting interior to the ice line are thought to have been displaced from their formation locations by processes that remain debated. Here we uncover several new metallicity trends, which together may indicate that two competing mechanisms deliver close-in giant planets: gentle disk migration, operating in environments with a range of metallicities, and violent planet-planet gravitational interactions, primarily triggered in metal-rich systems in which multiple giant planets can form. First, we show with 99.1% confidence that giant planets with semimajor axes between 0.1 and 1 AU orbiting metal-poor stars ([Fe/H] < 0) are confined to lower eccentricities than those orbiting metal-rich stars. Second, we show with 93.3% confidence that eccentric proto-hot Jupiters undergoing tidal circularization primarily orbit metal-rich stars. Finally, we show that only metal-rich stars host a pile-up of hot Jupiters, helping account for the lack of such a pile-up in the overall Kepler sample. Migration caused by stellar perturbers (e.g., stellar Kozai) is unlikely to account for the trends. These trends further motivate follow-up theoretical work addressing which hot Jupiter migration theories can also produce the observed population of eccentric giant planets between 0.1 and 1 AU.

Kepler-63b: A Giant Planet in a Polar Orbit around a Young Sun-like Star

We present the discovery and characterization of a giant planet orbiting the young Sun-like star Kepler-63 (KOI-63, m_(Kp) = 11.6, T_(eff) = 5576 K, M_★ = 0.98 M_☉). The planet transits every 9.43 days, with apparent depth variations and brightening anomalies caused by large starspots. The planets radius is 6.1 ± 0.2 R_⊕, based on the transit light curve and the estimated stellar parameters. The planets mass could not be measured with the existing radial-velocity data, due to the high level of stellar activity, but if we assume a circular orbit, then we can place a rough upper bound of 120 M_⊕ (3σ). The host star has a high obliquity (ψ = 104°), based on the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect and an analysis of starspot-crossing events. This result is valuable because almost all previous obliquity measurements are for stars with more massive planets and shorter-period orbits. In addition, the polar orbit of the planet combined with an analysis of spot-crossing events reveals a large and persistent polar starspot. Such spots have previously been inferred using Doppler tomography, and predicted in simulations of magnetic activity of young Sun-like stars.

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.

The Photoeccentric Effect and Proto-hot Jupiters. III. A Paucity of Proto-hot Jupiters on Super-eccentric Orbits

Gas giant planets orbiting within 0.1 AU of their host stars are unlikely to have formed in situ and are evidence for planetary migration. It is debated whether the typical hot Jupiter smoothly migrated inward from its formation location through the proto-planetary disk, or was perturbed by another body onto a highly eccentric orbit, which tidal dissipation subsequently shrank and circularized during close stellar passages. Socrates and collaborators predicted that the latter model should produce a population of super-eccentric proto-hot Jupiters readily observable by Kepler. We find a paucity of such planets in the Kepler sample, which is inconsistent with the theoretical prediction with 96.9% confidence. Observational effects are unlikely to explain this discrepancy. We find that the fraction of hot Jupiters with an orbital period P > 3 days produced by the star-planet Kozai mechanism does not exceed (at two-sigma) 44%. Our results may indicate that disk migration is the dominant channel for producing hot Jupiters with P > 3 days. Alternatively, the typical hot Jupiter may have been perturbed to a high eccentricity by interactions with a planetary rather than stellar companion, and began tidal circularization much interior to 1 AU after multiple scatterings. A final alternative is that early in the tidal circularization process at high eccentricities tidal circularization occurs much more rapidly than later in the process at low eccentricities, although this is contrary to current tidal theories.

Advances in exoplanet science from Kepler

Numerous telescopes and techniques have been used to find and study extrasolar planets, but none has been more successful than NASAs Kepler space telescope. Kepler has discovered most of the known exoplanets, the smallest planets to orbit normal stars and the planets most likely to be similar to Earth. Most importantly, Kepler has provided us with our first look at the typical characteristics of planets and planetary systems for planets with sizes as small as, and orbits as large as, those of Earth.

β PICTORIS' INNER DISK in POLARIZED LIGHT and NEW ORBITAL PARAMETERS for β PICTORIS b

© 2015. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. We present H-band observations of β Pic with the Gemini Planet Imagers (GPIs) polarimetry mode that reveal the debris disk between ∼0.″3 (6 AU) and ∼1.″7 (33 AU), while simultaneously detecting β Pic b. The polarized disk image was fit with a dust density model combined with a Henyey-Greenstein scattering phase function. The best-fit model indicates a disk inclined to the line of sight () with a position angle (PA) (slightly offset from the main outer disk, ), that extends from an inner disk radius of to well outside GPIs field of view. In addition, we present an updated orbit for β Pic b based on new astrometric measurements taken in GPIs spectroscopic mode spanning 14 months. The planet has a semimajor axis of , with an eccentricity The PA of the ascending node is offset from both the outer main disk and the inner disk seen in the GPI image. The orbital fit constrains the stellar mass of β Pic to Dynamical sculpting by β Pic b cannot easily account for the following three aspects of the inferred disk properties: (1) the modeled inner radius of the disk is farther out than expected if caused by β Pic b; (2) the mutual inclination of the inner disk and β Pic b is when it is expected to be closer to zero; and (3) the aspect ratio of the disk () is larger than expected from interactions with β Pic b or self-stirring by the disks parent bodies.

ON THE TIDAL ORIGIN OF HOT JUPITER STELLAR OBLIQUITY TRENDS

It is debated whether the two hot Jupiter populations—those on orbits misaligned from their host star’s spin axis and those well-aligned—result from two migration channels or from two tidal realignment regimes. Here I demonstrate that equilibrium tides raised by a planet on its star can account for three observed spin–orbit alignment trends: the aligned orbits of hot Jupiters orbiting cool stars, the planetary mass cut-off for retrograde planets, and the stratification by planet mass of cool host stars’ rotation frequencies. The first trend can be caused by strong versus weak magnetic braking (the Kraft break), rather than realignment of the star’s convective envelope versus the entire star. The second trend can result from a small effective stellar moment of inertia participating in the tidal realignment in hot stars, enabling massive retrograde planets to partially realign to become prograde. The third trend is attributable to higher-mass planets more effectively counteracting braking to spin up their stars. Both hot and cool stars require a small effective stellar moment of inertia participating in the tidal realignment, e.g., an outer layer weakly coupled to the interior. I demonstrate via Monte Carlo that this model can match the observed trends and distributions of sky-projected misalignments and stellar rotation frequencies. I discuss implications for inferring hot Jupiter migration mechanisms from obliquities, emphasizing that even hot stars do not constitute a pristine sample. Key word: planet–star interactions Online-only material: color figures

ON THE MISALIGNMENT OF THE DIRECTLY IMAGED PLANET β PICTORIS b WITH THE SYSTEM'S WARPED INNER DISK

The vertical warp in the debris disk β Pictoris—an inclined inner disk extending into a flat outer disk—has long been interpreted as the signpost of a planet on an inclined orbit. Direct images spanning 2004-2010 have revealed β Pictoris b, a planet with a mass and orbital distance consistent with this picture. However, it was recently reported that the orbit of planet b is aligned with the flat outer disk, not the inclined inner disk, and thus lacks the inclination to warp the disk. We explore three scenarios for reconciling the apparent misalignment of the directly imaged planet β Pictoris b with the warped inner disk of β Pictoris: observational uncertainty, an additional planet, and damping of planet bs inclination. We find that, at the extremes of the uncertainties, the orbit of β Pictoris b has the inclination necessary to produce the observed warp. We also find that if planet b were aligned with the flat outer disk, it would prevent another planet from creating a warp with the observed properties; therefore planet b itself must be responsible for the warp. Finally, planet bs inclination could have been damped by dynamical friction and still produce the observed disk morphology, but the feasibility of damping depends on disk properties and the presence of other planets. More precise observations of the orbit of planet b and the position angle of the outer disk will allow us to distinguish between the first and third scenarios.

A metallicity recipe for rocky planets

Planets with sizes between those of Earth and Neptune divide into two populations: purely rocky bodies whose atmospheres contribute negligibly to their sizes, and larger gas-enveloped planets possessing voluminous and optically thick atmospheres. We show that whether a planet forms rocky or gas-enveloped depends on the solid surface density of its parent disk. Assembly times for rocky cores are sensitive to disk solid surface density. Lower surface densities spawn smaller planetary embryos; to assemble a core of given mass, smaller embryos require more mergers between bodies farther apart and therefore exponentially longer formation times. Gas accretion simulations yield a rule of thumb that a rocky core must be at least 2