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- Lazzoni, C., et al.
(författare)
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The search for disks or planetary objects around directly imaged companions : a candidate around DH Tauri B
- 2020
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 641
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. In recent decades, thousands of substellar companions have been discovered with both indirect and direct methods of detection. While the majority of the sample is populated by objects discovered using radial velocity and transit techniques, an increasing number have been directly imaged. These planets and brown dwarfs are extraordinary sources of information that help in rounding out our understanding of planetary systems.Aims. In this paper, we focus our attention on substellar companions detected with the latter technique, with the primary goal of investigating their close surroundings and looking for additional companions and satellites, as well as disks and rings. Any such discovery would shed light on many unresolved questions, particularly with regard to their possible formation mechanisms.Methods. To reveal bound features of directly imaged companions, whether for point-like or extended sources, we need to suppress the contribution from the source itself. Therefore, we developed a method based on the negative fake companion technique that first estimates the position in the field of view (FoV) and the flux of the imaged companion with high precision, then subtracts a rescaled model point spread function (PSF) from the imaged companion, using either an image of the central star or another PSF in the FoV. Next it performs techniques, such as angular differential imaging, to further remove quasi-static patterns of the star (i.e., speckle contaminants) that affect the residuals of close-in companions.Results. After testing our tools on simulated companions and disks and on systems that were chosen ad hoc, we applied the method to the sample of substellar objects observed with SPHERE during the SHINE GTO survey. Among the 27 planets and brown dwarfs we analyzed, most objects did not show remarkable features, which was as expected, with the possible exception of a point source close to DH Tau B. This candidate companion was detected in four different SPHERE observations, with an estimated mass of ~1MJup, and a mass ratio with respect to the brown dwarf of 1∕10. This binary system, if confirmed, would be the first of its kind, opening up interesting questions for the formation mechanism, evolution, and frequency of such pairs. In order to address the latter, the residuals and contrasts reached for 25 companions in the sample of substellar objects observed with SPHERE were derived. If the DH Tau Bb companion is real, the binary fraction obtained is ~7%, which is in good agreement with the results obtained for field brown dwarfs.Conclusions. While there may currently be many limitations affecting the exploration of bound features to directly imaged exoplanets and brown dwarfs, next-generation instruments from the ground and space (i.e., JWST, ELT, and LUVOIR) will be able to image fainter objects and, thus, drive the application of this technique in upcoming searches for exo-moons and circumplanetary disks.
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| 2. |
- Le Coroller, H., et al.
(författare)
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K-Stacker : an algorithm to hack the orbital parameters of planets hidden in high-contrast imaging
- 2020
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 639
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. Recent high-contrast imaging surveys, using the Spectro-Polarimetic High contrast imager for Exoplanets REsearch (SPHERE) or the Gemini Planet Imager in search of planets in young, nearby systems, have shown evidence of a small number ofgiant planets at relatively large separation beyond 10–30 au, where those surveys are the most sensitive. Access to smaller physical separations between 5 and 30 au is the next step for future planet imagers on 10 m telescopes and the next generation of extremely large telescopes in order to bridge the gap with indirect techniques such as radial velocity, transit, and soon astrometry with Gaia. In addition to new technologies and instruments, the development of innovative observing strategies combined with optimized data processing tools is participating in the improvement of detection capabilities at very close angular separation. In that context, we recently proposed a new algorithm, Keplerian-Stacker, which combines multiple observations acquired at different epochs and takes into account the orbital motion of a potential planet present in the images to boost the ultimate detection limit. We showed that this algorithm is able to find planets in time series of simulated images of the SPHERE InfraRed Dual-band Imager and Spectrograph (IRDIS) even when a planet remains undetected at one epoch.Aims. Our goal is to test and validate the K-Stacker algorithm performances on real SPHERE datasets to demonstrate the resilience of this algorithm to instrumental speckles and the gain offered in terms of true detection. This will motivate future dedicated multi-epoch observation campaigns of well-chosen, young, nearby systems and very nearby stars carefully selected to search for planets in emitted and reflected light, respectively, to open a new path concerning the observing strategy used with current and future planet imagers.Methods. To test K-Stacker, we injected fake planets and scanned the low signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) regime in a series of raw observations obtained by the SPHERE/IRDIS instrument in the course of the SPHERE High-contrast ImagiNg survey for Exoplanets. We also considered the cases of two specific targets intensively monitored during this campaign: β Pictoris and HD 95086. For each target and epoch, the data were reduced using standard angular differential imaging processing techniques and then recombined with K-Stackerto recover the fake planetary signals. In addition, the known exoplanets β Pictoris b and HD 95086 b previously identified at lower S/N in single epochs have also been recovered by K-Stacker.Results. We show that K-Stacker achieves a high success rate of ≈100% when the S/N of the planet in the stacked image reaches≈9. The improvement of the S/N is given as the square root of the total exposure time contained in the data being combined. At S/N<6−7, the number of false positives is high near the coronagraphic mask, but a chromatic study or astrophysical criteria can help to disentangle between a bright speckle and a true detection. During the blind test and the redetection of HD 95086 b, and β Pic b, we highlight the ability of K-Stacker to find orbital solutions consistent with those derived by the current Markov chain Monte Carlo orbital fitting techniques. This confirms that in addition to the detection gain, K-Stacker offers the opportunity to characterize the most probable orbital solutions of the exoplanets recovered at low S/N.
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| 3. |
- Launhardt, R., et al.
(författare)
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ISPY-NACO Imaging Survey for Planets around Young stars : Survey description and results from the first 2.5 years of observations
- 2020
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 635
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. The occurrence rate of long-period (a greater than or similar to 50 au) giant planets around young stars is highly uncertain since it is not only governed by the protoplanetary disc structure and planet formation process, but also reflects both dynamical re-structuring processes after planet formation as well as possible capture of planets not formed in situ. Direct imaging is currently the only feasible method to detect such wide-orbit planets and constrain their occurrence rate.Aims. We aim to detect and characterise wide-orbit giant planets during and shortly after their formation phase within protoplanetary and debris discs around nearby young stars.Methods. We carry out a large L-band high-contrast direct imaging survey for giant planets around 200 young stars with protoplanetary or debris discs using the NACO instrument at the ESO Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal in Chile. We use very deep angular differential imaging observations with typically >60 degrees field rotation, and employ a vector vortex coronagraph where feasible to achieve the best possible point source sensitivity down to an inner working angle of about 100 mas. This paper introduces the NACO Imaging Survey for Planets around Young stars (NACO-ISPY), its goals and strategy, the target list, and data reduction scheme, and presents preliminary results from the first 2.5 survey years.Results. We achieve a mean 5 sigma contrast of Delta L ' = 6.4 +/- 0.1 mag at 150 mas and a background limit of L ' (bg) = 16.5 +/- 0.2 textual-form L bg ' =16.5 +/- 0.2 mag at 1.' ' 5. Our detection probability is 50% for companions with greater than or similar to 8 M-Jup at semi-major axes of 80-200 au and >13 M-Jup at 30-250 au. It thus compares well to the detection space of other state-of-the-art high-contrast imaging surveys. We have already contributed to the characterisation of two new planets originally discovered by VLT/SPHERE, but we have not yet independently discovered new planets around any of our target stars. We have discovered two new close-in low-mass stellar companions around R CrA and HD 193571 and report in this paper the discovery of close co-moving low-mass stellar companions around HD 72660 and HD 92536. Furthermore, we report L ' -band scattered light images of the discs around eleven stars, six of which have never been imaged at L ' -band before.Conclusions. The first 2.5 yr of the NACO-ISPY survey have already demonstrated that VLT/NACO combined with our survey strategy can achieve the anticipated sensitivity to detect giant planets and reveal new close stellar companions around our target stars.
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