arXiv subjects

R. B. Kuhn

Publications and source records attributed to R. B. Kuhn.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The Hill sphere transits of Beta Pictoris c and the search for another 1981-like event

Beta Pictoris is a young and nearby planetary system hosting an edge-on debris disk and at least three gas-giant planets. Their circumplanetary environments could host exomoons and rings, a detection of which would be highly informative for moon and planet formation theories. A photometric fluctuation of about 4% was seen towards Beta Pictoris in 1981, indicating the transit of dust in the system, which could be associated with the Hill spheres of the two inner planets. We search for the origin of the 1981 event by searching for an analogous event in multi-epoch photometry from 2017 to 2023, and look for signs of circumplanetary material in transits of the Hill sphere of Beta Pictoris c. Observations from the BRITE satellite, and the bRing and ASTEP observatories are fitted to a model of the 1981 event to search for a similar event, and also search for a signal consistent with a circumplanetary disk transit using a simple flat disk model. No compelling evidence for a 1981 event during a Hill sphere primary transit is found, although we do find a candidate event around 2019 July 26. Due to the uncertainty in the time of closest projected separation of Beta Pictoris c, a search for a disk during the primary transit of 2018 could not be robustly determined, but bRing photometry for the second primary transit places an upper limit on the dust content of the Hill sphere of ~ $10^{22}$ grams of material. With no compelling detection of an event similar to that seen in 1981 during the transits of Beta Pictoris c in the photometric time series, we rule out the hypothesis that this event was related to the Hill spheres of Beta Pictoris c and Beta Pictoris b. Future observations of the next Hill sphere transit in 2028 can be realised with both ground-based observatories and with PLATO, whose first long duration science pointing will include Beta Pictoris.

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arXiv2021

The $β$ Pictoris b Hill sphere transit campaign. Paper I: Photometric limits to dust and rings

Photometric monitoring of Beta Pictoris in 1981 showed anomalous fluctuations of up to 4% over several days, consistent with foreground material transiting the stellar disk. The subsequent discovery of the gas giant planet Beta Pictoris b and the predicted transit of its Hill sphere to within 0.1 au projected distance of the planet provided an opportunity to search for the transit of a circumplanetary disk in this $21\pm 4$ Myr-old planetary system. Continuous broadband photometric monitoring of Beta Pictoris requires ground-based observatories at multiple longitudes to provide redundancy and to provide triggers for rapid spectroscopic followup. These observatories include the dedicated Beta Pictoris monitoring observatory bRing at Sutherland and Siding Springs, the ASTEP400 telescope at Concordia, and observations from the space observatories BRITE and Hubble Space Telescope. We search the combined light curves for evidence of short period transient events caused by rings and for longer term photometric variability due to diffuse circumplanetary material. We find no photometric event that matches with the event seen in November 1981, and there is no systematic photometric dimming of the star as a function of the Hill sphere radius. We conclude that the 1981 event was not caused by the transit of a circumplanetary disk around Beta Pictoris b. The upper limit on the long term variability of Beta Pictoris places an upper limit of $1.8\times 10^{22}$ g of dust within the Hill sphere. Circumplanetary material is either condensed into a non-transiting disk, is condensed into a disk with moons that has a small obliquity, or is below our detection threshold. This is the first time that a dedicated international campaign has mapped the Hill sphere transit of a gas giant extrasolar planet at 10 au.

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arXiv2020

Bow-shocks, nova shells, disc winds and tilted discs: The Nova-Like V341 Ara Has It All

V341 Ara was recently recognised as one of the closest (d ~ 150 pc) and brightest (V~ 10) nova-like cataclysmic variables. This unique system is surrounded by a bright emission nebula, likely to be the remnant of a recent nova eruption. Embedded within this nebula is a prominent bow-shock, where the system's accretion disc wind runs into its own nova shell. In order to establish its fundamental properties, we present the first comprehensive multi-wavelength study of the system. Long-term photometry reveals quasi-periodic, super-orbital variations with a characteristic time-scale of 10-16 days and typical amplitude of ~1 mag. High-cadence photometry from TESS reveals for the first time both the orbital period and a "negative superhump" period. The latter is usually interpreted as the signature of a tilted accretion disc. We propose a recently developed disc instability model as a plausible explanation for the photometric behaviour. In our spectroscopic data, we clearly detect anti-phased absorption and emission line components. Their radial velocities suggest a high mass ratio, which in turn implies an unusually low white dwarf mass. We also constrain the wind mass-loss rate of the system from the spatially resolved [O iii] emission produced in the bow-shock; this can be used to test and calibrate accretion disc wind models. We suggest a possible association between V341 Ara and a "guest star" mentioned in Chinese historical records in AD1240. If this marks the date of the system's nova eruption, V341 Ara would be the oldest recovered nova of its class and an excellent laboratory for testing nova theory.

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arXiv2017

WASP-167b/KELT-13b: Joint discovery of a hot Jupiter transiting a rapidly-rotating F1V star

We report the joint WASP/KELT discovery of WASP-167b/KELT-13b, a transiting hot Jupiter with a 2.02-d orbit around a $V$ = 10.5, F1V star with [Fe/H] = 0.1 $\pm$ 0.1. The 1.5 R$_{\rm Jup}$ planet was confirmed by Doppler tomography of the stellar line profiles during transit. We place a limit of $<$ 8 M$_{\rm Jup}$ on its mass. The planet is in a retrograde orbit with a sky-projected spin-orbit angle of $λ= -165^{\circ} \pm 5^{\circ}$. This is in agreement with the known tendency for orbits around hotter stars to be more likely to be misaligned. WASP-167/KELT-13 is one of the few systems where the stellar rotation period is less than the planetary orbital period. We find evidence of non-radial stellar pulsations in the host star, making it a $δ$-Scuti or $γ$-Dor variable. The similarity to WASP-33, a previously known hot-Jupiter host with pulsations, adds to the suggestion that close-in planets might be able to excite stellar pulsations.

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arXiv2017

Periodic Eclipses of the Young Star PDS 110 Discovered with WASP and KELT Photometry

We report the discovery of eclipses by circumstellar disc material associated with the young star PDS 110 in the Ori OB1a association using the SuperWASP and KELT surveys. PDS 110 (HD 290380, IRAS 05209-0107) is a rare Fe/Ge-type star, a ~10 Myr-old accreting intermediate-mass star showing strong infrared excess (L$_{\rm IR}$/L$_{\rm bol}$ ~ 0.25). Two extremely similar eclipses with a depth of ~30\% and duration ~25 days were observed in November 2008 and January 2011. We interpret the eclipses as caused by the same structure with an orbital period of $808\pm2$ days. Shearing over a single orbit rules out diffuse dust clumps as the cause, favouring the hypothesis of a companion at ~2AU. The characteristics of the eclipses are consistent with transits by an unseen low-mass (1.8-70M$_{Jup}$) planet or brown dwarf with a circum-secondary disc of diameter ~0.3 AU. The next eclipse event is predicted to take place in September 2017 and could be monitored by amateur and professional observatories across the world.

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arXiv2016

The Nainital-Cape Survey-IV

The Nainital-Cape survey is a dedicated ongoing survey programme to search for and study pulsational variability in chemically peculiar (CP) stars to understand their internal structure and evolution. The main aims of this survey are to find new pulsating Ap and Am stars in the northern and southern hemisphere and to perform asteroseismic studies of these new pulsators. The survey is conducted using high-speed photometry. The candidate stars were selected on the basis of having Stromgren photometric indices similar to those of known pulsating CP stars. Over the last decade a total of 337 candidate pulsating CP stars were observed for the Nainital-Cape survey, making it one of the longest ground-based surveys for pulsation in CP stars in terms of time span and sample size. The previous papers of this series presented seven new pulsating variables and 229 null results. In this paper we present the light curves, frequency spectra and the various astrophysical parameters of the 108 additional CP stars observed since the last reported results. We have also tabulated the basic physical parameters of the known roAp stars. As part of establishing the detection limits in the Nainital-Cape survey, we investigated the scintillation noise level at the two observing sites used in this survey, Sutherland and Nainital, by comparing the combined frequency spectra stars observed from each location. Our analysis shows that both the sites permit the detection of variations on the order of 0.6 milli-magnitude (mmag) in the frequency range 1-4 mHz, with Sutherland being marginally better, on average.

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arXiv2013

Evaluating Gyrochronology on the Zero-Age-Main-Sequence: Rotation Periods in the Southern Open Cluster Blanco 1 from the KELT-South Survey

We report periods for 33 members of Blanco 1 as measured from KELT-South light curves, the first reported rotation periods for this benchmark zero-age-main-sequence open cluster. The distribution of these stars spans from late-A or early-F dwarfs to mid-K with periods ranging from less than a day to ~8 days. The rotation period distribution has a morphology similar to the coeval Pleiades cluster, suggesting the universal nature of stellar rotation distributions. Employing two different gyrochronology methods, we find an age of 146+13-14 Myr for the cluster. Using the same techniques, we infer an age of 134+9-10 Myr for the Pleiades measured from existing literature rotation periods. These rotation-derived ages agree with independently determined cluster ages based on the lithium depletion boundary technique. Additionally, we evaluate different gyrochronology models, and quantify levels of agreement between the models and the Blanco 1/Pleiades rotation period distributions, including incorporating the rotation distributions of clusters at ages up to 1.1 Gyr. We find the Skumanich-like spin-down rate sufficiently describes the rotation evolution of stars hotter than the Sun; however, we find cooler stars rotating faster than predicted by a Skumanich-law, suggesting a mass dependence in the efficiency of stellar angular momentum loss rate. Finally, we compare the Blanco 1 and Pleiades rotation period distributions to available non-linear angular momentum evolution models. We find they require a significant mass dependence on the initial rotation rate of solar-type stars to reproduce the observed range of rotation periods at a given stellar mass, and are furthermore unable to predict the observed over-density of stars along the upper-envelope of the clusters' rotation distributions.

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