arXiv subjects

Gregory W. Henry

Publications and source records attributed to Gregory W. Henry.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Host Star Properties and Transit Exclusion for the HD 38529 Planetary System

The transit signature of exoplanets provides an avenue through which characterization of exoplanetary properties may be undertaken, such as studies of mean density, structure, and atmospheric composition. The Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS) is a program to expand the catalog of transiting planets around bright host stars by refining the orbits of known planets discovered with the radial velocity technique. Here we present results for the HD 38529 system. We determine fundamental properties of the host star through direct interferometric measurements of the radius and through spectroscopic analysis. We provide new radial velocity measurements that are used to improve the Keplerian solution for the two known planets, and we find no evidence for a previously postulated third planet. We also present 12 years of precision robotic photometry of HD 38529 that demonstrate the inner planet does not transit and the host star exhibits cyclic variations in seasonal mean brightness with a timescale of approximately six years.

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arXiv2012

Non-detection of previously reported transits of HD 97658b with MOST photometry

The radial velocity-discovered exoplanet HD 97658b was recently announced to transit, with a derived planetary radius of 2.93 \pm 0.28 R_{Earth}. As a transiting super-Earth orbiting a bright star, this planet would make an attractive candidate for additional observations, including studies of its atmospheric properties. We present and analyze follow-up photometric observations of the HD 97658 system acquired with the MOST space telescope. Our results show no transit with the depth and ephemeris reported in the announcement paper. For the same ephemeris, we rule out transits for a planet with radius larger than 2.09 R_{Earth}, corresponding to the reported 3σlower limit. We also report new radial velocity measurements which continue to support the existence of an exoplanet with a period of 9.5 days, and obtain improved orbital parameters.

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arXiv2012

The Discovery of HD 37605c and a Dispositive Null Detection of Transits of HD 37605b

We report the radial-velocity discovery of a second planetary mass companion to the K0 V star HD 37605, which was already known to host an eccentric, P~55 days Jovian planet, HD 37605b. This second planet, HD 37605c, has a period of ~7.5 years with a low eccentricity and an Msini of ~3.4 MJup. Our discovery was made with the nearly 8 years of radial velocity follow-up at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope and Keck Observatory, including observations made as part of the Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS) effort to provide precise ephemerides to long-period planets for transit follow-up. With a total of 137 radial velocity observations covering almost eight years, we provide a good orbital solution of the HD 37605 system, and a precise transit ephemeris for HD 37605b. Our dynamic analysis reveals very minimal planet-planet interaction and an insignificant transit time variation. Using the predicted ephemeris, we performed a transit search for HD 37605b with the photometric data taken by the T12 0.8-m Automatic Photoelectric Telescope (APT) and the Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars (MOST) satellite. Though the APT photometry did not capture the transit window, it characterized the stellar activity of HD 37605, which is consistent of it being an old, inactive star, with a tentative rotation period of 57.67 days. The MOST photometry enabled us to report a dispositive null detection of a non-grazing transit for this planet. Within the predicted transit window, we exclude an edge-on predicted depth of 1.9% at >>10sigma, and exclude any transit with an impact parameter b>0.951 at greater than 5sigma. We present the BOOTTRAN package for calculating Keplerian orbital parameter uncertainties via bootstrapping. We found consistency between our orbital parameters calculated by the RVLIN package and error bars by BOOTTRAN with those produced by a Bayesian analysis using MCMC.

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arXiv2012

Rotational and Cyclical Variability in gamma Cassiopeiae. II. Fifteen Seasons

The B0.5IVe star gam Cas is of great interest because it is the prototype of a small group of classical Be stars having hard X-ray emission of unknown origin. We discuss results from ongoing B and V observations of the gam Cas star-disk system acquired with an APT during the observing seasons 1997-2011. In an earlier study, Smith, Henry, & Vishniac showed that light variations in gam Cas are dominated by a series of comparatively prominent cycles with amplitudes of 0.02-0.03 mag and lengths of 2-3 months, superimposed on a 1.21-day periodic signal some five times smaller, which they attributed to rotation. The cycle lengths clustered around 70 days. Changes in both cycle length and amplitude were observed from year to year. These authors also found the V-band cycles to be 30-40% larger than the B-band cycles. In the present study we find continued evidence for these variability patterns and for the bimodal distribution of the B/V amplitude ratios in the long cycles. During the 2010 observing season, gam Cas underwent a mass loss event (outburst), as evidenced by the brightening and reddening seen in our new photometry. This episode coincided with a waning of the amplitude in the ongoing cycle. The Be outburst ended the following year, and the light-curve amplitude returned to pre-outburst levels. This behavior reinforces the interpretation that cycles arise from a global disk instability. Remarkably, we also find that both the amplitude and the asymmetry of the rotational waveform changed over the years. We review arguments for this modulation arising from transits of a surface magnetic disturbance. Finally, to a limit of 5 mmag, we find no evidence for any photometric variation corresponding to the gam Cas binary period, 203.55 days, or to the first few harmonics.

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arXiv2012

The Stellar Activity - Rotation Relationship

Using a new catalog of 824 solar and late-type stars with X-ray luminosities and rotation periods we have studied the relationship between rotation and stellar activity. From an unbiased subset of this sample the power law slope of the unsaturated regime, $L_X/L_{bol}\propto Ro^β$, is fit as $β=-2.70\pm0.13$. This is inconsistent with the canonical $β=-2$ slope to a confidence of 5$σ$ and argues for an interface-type dynamo. Super-saturation is observed for the fastest rotators in our sample and its parametric dependencies are explored. Significant correlations are found with both the corotation radius and the excess polar updraft, the latter theory being supported by other observations. We also present a new X-ray population synthesis model of the mature stellar component of our Galaxy and use it to reproduce deep observations of a high Galactic latitude field. The model, XStar, can be used to test models of stellar spin-down and dynamo decay, as well as for estimating stellar X-ray contamination rates for non-stellar studies.

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arXiv2012

The Lick-Carnegie Survey: A New Two-Planet System Around the Star HD 207832

Keck/HIRES precision radial velocities of HD 207832 indicate the presence of two Jovian-type planetary companions in Keplerian orbits around this G star. The planets have minimum masses of 0.56 and 0.73 Jupiter-masses with orbital periods of ~162 and ~1156 days, and eccentricities of 0.13 and 0.27, respectively. Stromgren b and y photometry reveals a clear stellar rotation signature of the host star with a period of 17.8 days, well separated from the period of the radial velocity variations, reinforcing their Keplerian origin. The values of the semimajor axes of the planets suggest that these objects have migrated from the region of giant planet formation to closer orbits. In order to examine the possibility of the existence of additional (small) planets in the system, we studied the orbital stability of hypothetical terrestrial-sized objects in the region between the two planets and interior to the orbit of the inner body. Results indicated that stable orbits exist only in a small region interior to planet b. However, the current observational data offer no evidence for the existence of additional objects in this system.

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arXiv2012

3.6 and 4.5 Micron Phase Curves and Evidence for Non-Equilibrium Chemistry in the Atmosphere of Extrasolar Planet HD 189733b

We present new, full-orbit observations of the infrared phase variations of the canonical hot Jupiter HD 189733b obtained in the 3.6 and 4.5 micron bands using the Spitzer Space Telescope. When combined with previous phase curve observations at 8.0 and 24 micron, these data allow us to characterize the exoplanet's emission spectrum as a function of planetary longitude. We utilize improved methods for removing the effects of intrapixel sensitivity variations and accounting for the presence of time-correlated noise in our data. We measure a phase curve amplitude of 0.1242% +/- 0.0061% in the 3.6 micron band and 0.0982% +/- 0.0089% in the 4.5 micron band. We find that the times of minimum and maximum flux occur several hours earlier than predicted for an atmosphere in radiative equilibrium, consistent with the eastward advection of gas by an equatorial super-rotating jet. The locations of the flux minima in our new data differ from our previous observations at 8 micron, and we present new evidence indicating that the flux minimum observed in the 8 micron is likely caused by an over-shooting effect in the 8 micron array. We obtain improved estimates for HD 189733b's dayside planet-star flux ratio of 0.1466% +/- 0.0040% at 3.6 micron and 0.1787% +/- 0.0038% at 4.5 micron; these are the most accurate secondary eclipse depths obtained to date for an extrasolar planet. We compare our new dayside and nightside spectra for HD 189733b to the predictions of models from Burrows et al. (2008) and Showman et al. (2009). We find that HD 189733b's 4.5 micron nightside flux is 3.3 sigma smaller than predicted by the Showman et al. models, which assume that the chemistry is in local thermal equilibrium. We conclude that this discrepancy is best-explained by vertical mixing, which should lead to an excess of CO and correspondingly enhanced 4.5 micron absorption in this region. [abridged]

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arXiv2012

The HD 192263 system: planetary orbital period and stellar variability disentangled

As part of the Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS), we present new radial velocities and photometry of the HD 192263 system. Our analysis of the already available Keck-HIRES and CORALIE radial velocity measurements together with the five new Keck measurements we report in this paper results in improved orbital parameters for the system. We derive constraints on the size and phase location of the transit window for HD 192263b, a Jupiter-mass planet with a period of 24.3587 \pm 0.0022 days. We use 10 years of Automated Photoelectric Telescope (APT) photometry to analyze the stellar variability and search for planetary transits. We find continuing evidence of spot activity with periods near 23.4 days. The shape of the corresponding photometric variations changes over time, giving rise to not one but several Fourier peaks near this value. However, none of these frequencies coincides with the planet's orbital period and thus we find no evidence of star-planet interactions in the system. We attribute the ~23-day variability to stellar rotation. There are also indications of spot variations on longer (8 years) timescales. Finally, we use the photometric data to exclude transits for a planet with the predicted radius of 1.09 RJ, and as small as 0.79 RJ.

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arXiv2012

Detection of a Transiting Low-Density Super-Earth

New APT photometric observations of HD 97658 by Henry during the current 2012 observing season have failed to confirm the shallow transits of HD 97658b reported below. Additional observations are required to confirm or exclude transits of HD 97658b. We present evidence for photometric transits of the low-mass planet HD 97658b across the disk of its host star, an early K dwarf. This planet was previously discovered in radial velocities (RVs) from Keck/HIRES as part of the Eta-Earth Survey. Using photometry from the Automated Photometric Telescopes at Fairborn Observatory, we detected four separate planetary egress events at times predicted from the RV orbit. We measured a transit depth of 1470 +/- 260 ppm, a result that should be confirmed and refined with space-based photometry. We also collected additional Keck-HIRES RV measurements that refined the transit ephemeris and planet mass. With an orbital period of 9.4957 +/- 0.0022 days, HD 97658b is a close-in planet that had been classified as a `super-Earth' based on its mass of 6.4 +/- 0.7 Mearth. However, the planet radius of 2.93 +/- 0.28 Rearth implies a density of 1.40 g/cc and suggests `sub-Neptune' status. The low density can be explained by an extended atmosphere of volatiles such as hydrogen, helium, and water. HD 97658b is similar to GJ 1214b in mass, radius, and density, although HD 97658b has a higher equilibrium temperature of 510 - 720 K. The star HD 97658 (V = 7.8, K = 5.7) is among the brightest known to host a transiting planet, which will facilitate detailed follow-up measurements.

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arXiv2011

Surprising variations in the rotation of the chemically peculiar stars CU Virginis and V901 Orionis

CU Vir and V901 Ori belong among these few magnetic chemically peculiar stars whose rotation periods vary on timescales of decades. We aim to study the stability of the periods in CU Vir and V901 Ori using all accessible observational data containing phase information. We collected all available relevant archived observations supplemented with our new measurements of these stars and analysed the period variations of the stars using a novel method that allows for the combination of data of diverse sorts. We found that the shapes of their phase curves were constant, while the periods were changing. Both stars exhibit alternating intervals of rotational braking and acceleration. The rotation period of CU Vir was gradually shortening until the year 1968, when it reached its local minimum of 0.52067198 d. The period then started increasing, reaching its local maximum of 0.5207163 d in the year 2005. Since that time the rotation has begun to accelerate again. We also found much smaller period changes in CU Vir on a timescale of several years. The rotation period of V901 Ori was increasing for the past quarter-century, reaching a maximum of 1.538771 d in the year 2003, when the rotation period began to decrease. A theoretically unexpected alternating variability of rotation periods in these stars would remove the spin-down time paradox and brings a new insight into structure and evolution of magnetic upper-main-sequence stars.

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arXiv2011

A Search for the Transit of HD 168443b: Improved Orbital Parameters and Photometry

The discovery of transiting planets around bright stars holds the potential to greatly enhance our understanding of planetary atmospheres. In this work we present the search for transits of HD 168443b, a massive planet orbiting the bright star HD 168443 V=6.92 with a period of 58.11 days. The high eccentricity of the planetary orbit e=0.53 significantly enhances the a-priori transit probability beyond that expected for a circular orbit, making HD 168443 a candidate for our ongoing Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS). Using additional radial velocities from Keck-HIRES, we refined the orbital parameters of this multi-planet system and derived a new transit ephemeris for HD 168443b. The reduced uncertainties in the transit window make a photometric transit search practicable. Photometric observations acquired during predicted transit windows were obtained on three nights. CTIO 1.0 m photometry acquired on 2010 September 7 had the required precision to detect a transit but fell just outside of our final transit window. Nightly photometry from the T8 0.8 m Automated Photometric Telescope (APT) at Fairborn Observatory, acquired over a span of 109 nights, demonstrates that HD 168443 is constant on a time scale of weeks. Higher-cadence photometry on 2011 April 28 and June 25 shows no evidence of a transit. We are able to rule out a non-grazing transit of HD 168443b.

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arXiv2011

The stellar activity-rotation relationship and the evolution of stellar dynamos

We present a sample of 824 solar and late-type stars with X-ray luminosities and rotation periods. This is used to study the relationship between rotation and stellar activity and derive a new estimate of the convective turnover time. From an unbiased subset of this sample the power law slope of the unsaturated regime, L_X / L_bol = Ro^β, is fit as β= -2.70 +/- 0.13. This is inconsistent with the canonical β=-2 slope to a confidence of 5 sigma, and argues for an additional term in the dynamo number equation. From a simple scaling analysis this implies ΔΩ/ Ω= Ω^0.7, i.e. the differential rotation of solar-type stars gradually declines as they spin down. Super-saturation is observed for the fastest rotators in our sample and its parametric dependencies are explored. Significant correlations are found with both the corotation radius and the excess polar updraft, the latter theory providing a stronger dependence and being supported by other observations. We estimate mass-dependent empirical thresholds for saturation and super-saturation and map out three regimes of coronal emission. Late F-type stars are shown never to pass through the saturated regime, passing straight from super-saturated to unsaturated X-ray emission. The theoretical threshold for coronal stripping is shown to be significantly different from the empirical saturation threshold (Ro < 0.13), suggesting it is not responsible. Instead we suggest that a different dynamo configuration is at work in stars with saturated coronal emission. This is supported by a correlation between the empirical saturation threshold and the time when stars transition between convective and interface sequences in rotational spin-down models.

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arXiv2011

A High Eccentricity Component in the Double Planet System Around HD 163607 and a Planet Around HD 164509

We report the detection of three new exoplanets from Keck Observatory. HD 163607 is a metal-rich G5IV star with two planets. The inner planet has an observed orbital period of 75.29 $\pm$ 0.02 days, a semi-amplitude of 51.1 $\pm$ 1.4 \ms, an eccentricity of 0.73 $\pm$ 0.02 and a derived minimum mass of \msini = 0.77 $\pm$ 0.02 \mjup. This is the largest eccentricity of any known planet in a multi-planet system. The argument of periastron passage is 78.7 $\pm$ 2.0$^{\circ}$; consequently, the planet's closest approach to its parent star is very near the line of sight, leading to a relatively high transit probability of 8%. The outer planet has an orbital period of 3.60 $\pm$ 0.02 years, an orbital eccentricity of 0.12 $\pm$ 0.06 and a semi-amplitude of 40.4 $\pm$ 1.3 \ms. The minimum mass is \msini = 2.29 $\pm$ 0.16 \mjup. HD 164509 is a metal-rich G5V star with a planet in an orbital period of 282.4 $\pm$ 3.8 days and an eccentricity of 0.26 $\pm$ 0.14. The semi-amplitude of 14.2 $\pm$ 2.7 \ms\ implies a minimum mass of 0.48 $\pm$ 0.09 \mjup. The radial velocities of HD 164509 also exhibit a residual linear trend of -5.1 $\pm$ 0.7 \ms\ per year, indicating the presence of an additional longer period companion in the system. Photometric observations demonstrate that HD 163607 and HD 164509 are constant in brightness to sub-millimag levels on their radial velocity periods. This provides strong support for planetary reflex motion as the cause of the radial velocity variations.

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arXiv2011

Retired A Stars and Their Companions: Eighteen New Jovian Planets

We report the detection of eighteen Jovian planets discovered as part of our Doppler survey of subgiant stars at Keck Observatory, with follow-up Doppler and photometric observations made at McDonald and Fairborn Observatories, respectively. The host stars have masses 0.927 < Mstar /Msun < 1.95, radii 2.5 < Rstar/Rsun < 8.7, and metallicities -0.46 < [Fe/H] < +0.30. The planets have minimum masses 0.9 MJup < MP sin i <3 MJup and semima jor axes a > 0.76 AU. These detections represent a 50% increase in the number of planets known to orbit stars more massive than 1.5 Msun and provide valuable additional information about the properties of planets around stars more massive thantheSun.

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arXiv2011

Revised Orbit and Transit Exclusion for HD 114762b

Transiting planets around bright stars have allowed the detailed follow-up and characterization of exoplanets, such as the study of exoplanetary atmospheres. The Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS) is refining the orbits of the known exoplanets to confirm or rule out both transit signatures and the presence of additional companions. Here we present results for the companion orbiting HD 114762 in an eccentric 84 day orbit. Radial velocity analysis performed on 19 years of Lick Observatory data constrain the uncertainty in the predicted time of mid-transit to ~5 hours, which is less than the predicted one-half day transit duration. We find no evidence of additional companions in this system. New photometric observations with one of our Automated Photoelectric Telescopes (APTs) at Fairborn Observatory taken during a revised transit time for companion b, along with 23 years of nightly automated observations, allow us to rule out on-time central transits to a limit of ~0.001 mag. Early or late central transits are ruled out to a limit of ~0.002 mag, and transits with half the duration of a central transit are ruled out to a limit of ~0.003 mag.

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arXiv2011

A Volume-Limited Photometric Survey of 114 gamma Doradus Candidates

We have carried out a photometric survey of a complete, volume-limited sample of gamma Doradus candidates. The sample was extracted from the Hipparcos catalog and consists of 114 stars with colors and absolute magnitudes within the range of known gamma Doradus stars. We devoted one year of observing time with our T12 0.8 m automatic photometric telescope to acquire nightly observations of the complete sample of stars. From these survey observations, we identify 37 stars with intrinsic variability of 0.002 mag or more. Of these 37 variables, eight have already been confirmed as gamma Doradus stars in our earlier papers; we scheduled the remaining 29 variables on our T3 0.4 m automatic telescope to acquire more intensive observations over the next two years. We obtained complementary spectroscopic observations with the Kitt Peak coude feed telescope. Analysis of our new photometric and spectroscopic data reveals 15 new gamma Doradus variables (and confirms two others), eight new delta Scuti variables (and confirms one other), and three new variables with unresolved periodicity. Of the 114 gamma Doradus candidates in our volume-limited sample, we find 25 stars that are new or previously-known gamma Doradus variables. This results in an incidence of 22% for gamma Doradus variability among candidate field stars for this volume of the solar neighborhood. The corresponding space density of gamma Doradus stars is 0.094 stars per 10^3 pc^3 or 94 stars per 10^6 pc^3. We provide an updated list of 86 bright, confirmed, gamma Doradus field stars.

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arXiv2011

A Spitzer Transmission Spectrum for the Exoplanet GJ 436b, Evidence for Stellar Variability, and Constraints on Dayside Flux Variations

In this paper we describe a uniform analysis of eight transits and eleven secondary eclipses of the extrasolar planet GJ 436b obtained in the 3.6, 4.5, and 8.0 micron bands using the IRAC instrument on the Spitzer Space Telescope between UT 2007 June 29 and UT 2009 Feb 4. We find that the best-fit transit depths for visits in the same bandpass can vary by as much as 8% of the total (4.7 sigma significance) from one epoch to the next. Although we cannot entirely rule out residual detector effects or a time-varying, high-altitude cloud layer in the planet's atmosphere as the cause of these variations, we consider the occultation of active regions on the star in a subset of the transit observations to be the most likely explanation. We reconcile the presence of magnetically active regions with the lack of significant visible or infrared flux variations from the star by proposing that the star's spin axis is tilted with respect to our line of sight, and that the planet's orbit is therefore likely to be misaligned. These observations serve to illustrate the challenges associated with transmission spectroscopy of planets orbiting late-type stars; we expect that other systems, such as GJ 1214, may display comparably variable transit depths. Our measured 8 micron secondary eclipse depths are consistent with a constant value, and we place a 1 sigma upper limit of 17% on changes in the planet's dayside flux in this band. Averaging over the eleven visits gives us an improved estimate of 0.0452% +/- 0.0027% for the secondary eclipse depth. We combine timing information from our observations with previously published data to produce a refined orbital ephemeris, and determine that the best-fit transit and eclipse times are consistent with a constant orbital period. [ABRIDGED]

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arXiv2011

Improved Orbital Parameters and Transit Monitoring for HD 156846b

HD 156846b is a Jovian planet in a highly eccentric orbit (e = 0.85) with a period of 359.55 days. The pericenter passage at a distance of 0.16 AU is nearly aligned to our line of sight, offering an enhanced transit probability of 5.4% and a potentially rich probe of the dynamics of a cool planetary atmosphere impulsively heated during close approach to a bright star (V = 6.5). We present new radial velocity (RV) and photometric measurements of this star as part of the Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS). The RV measurements from Keck-HIRES reduce the predicted transit time uncertainty to 20 minutes, an order of magnitude improvement over the ephemeris from the discovery paper. We photometrically monitored a predicted transit window under relatively poor photometric conditions, from which our non-detection does not rule out a transiting geometry. We also present photometry that demonstrates stability at the millimag level over its rotational timescale.

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