scholarly journals Stellar noise and planet detection. I. Oscillations, granulation and sun-like spots

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (S276) ◽  
pp. 527-529
Author(s):  
Xavier Dumusque ◽  
Nuno C. Santos ◽  
Stéphane Udry ◽  
Cristophe Lovis ◽  
Xavier Bonfils

AbstractSpectrographs like HARPS can now reach a sub-ms−1 precision in radial-velocity (RV) (Pepe & Lovis 2008). At this level of accuracy, we start to be confronted with stellar noise produced by 3 different physical phenomena: oscillations, granulation phenomena (granulation, meso- and super-granulation) and activity. On solar type stars, these 3 types of perturbation can induce ms−1 RV variation, but on different time scales: 3 to 15 minutes for oscillations, 15 minutes to 1.5 days for granulation phenomena and 10 to 50 days for activity. The high precision observational strategy used on HARPS, 1 measure per night of 15 minutes, on 10 consecutive days each month, is optimized, due to a long exposure time, to average out the noise coming from oscillations (Dumusque et al. 2011a) but not to reduce the noise coming from granulation and activity (Dumusque et al. 2011a and Dumusque et al. 2011b). The smallest planets found with this strategy (Mayor et al. 2009) seems to be at the limit of the actual observational strategy and not at the limit of the instrumental precision. To be able to find Earth mass planets in the habitable zone of solar-type stars (200 days for a K0 dwarf), new observational strategies, averaging out simultaneously all type of stellar noise, are required.

2020 ◽  
Vol 644 ◽  
pp. A77
Author(s):  
N. Meunier ◽  
A.-M. Lagrange ◽  
S. Borgniet

Context. Stellar activity strongly affects and may prevent the detection of Earth-mass planets in the habitable zone of solar-type stars with radial velocity technics. Astrometry is in principle less sensitive to stellar activity because the situation is more favourable: the stellar astrometric signal is expected to be fainter than the planetary astrometric signal compared to radial velocities. Aims. We quantify the effect of stellar activity on high-precision astrometry when Earth-mass planets are searched for in the habitable zone around old main-sequence solar-type stars. Methods. We used a very large set of magnetic activity synthetic time series to characterise the properties of the stellar astrometric signal. We then studied the detectability of exoplanets based on different approaches: first based on the theoretical level of false positives derived from the synthetic time series, and then with blind tests for old main-sequence F6-K4 stars. Results. The amplitude of the signal can be up to a few times the solar value depending on the assumptions made for activity level, spectral type, and spot contrast. The detection rates for 1 MEarth planets are very good, however, with extremely low false-positive rates in the habitable zone for stars in the F6-K4 range at 10 pc. The standard false-alarm probability using classical bootstrapping on the time series strongly overestimates the false-positive level. This affects the detection rates. Conclusions. We conclude that if technological challenges can be overcome and very high precision is reached, astrometry is much more suitable for detecting Earth-mass planets in the habitable zone around nearby solar-type stars than radial velocity, and detection rates are much higher for this range of planetary masses and periods when astrometric techniques are used than with radial velocity techniques.


2019 ◽  
Vol 632 ◽  
pp. A37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan S. Brems ◽  
Martin Kürster ◽  
Trifon Trifonov ◽  
Sabine Reffert ◽  
Andreas Quirrenbach

Context. Stars show various amounts of radial-velocity (RV) jitter due to varying stellar activity levels. The typical amount of RV jitter as a function of stellar age and observational timescale has not yet been systematically quantified, although it is often larger than the instrumental precision of modern high-resolution spectrographs used for Doppler planet detection and characterization. Aims. We aim to empirically determine the intrinsic stellar RV variation for mostly G and K dwarf stars on different timescales and for different stellar ages independently of stellar models. We also focus on young stars (≲30 Myr), where the RV variation is known to be large. Methods. We use archival FEROS and HARPS RV data of stars which were observed at least 30 times spread over at least two years. We then apply the pooled variance (PV) technique to these data sets to identify the periods and amplitudes of underlying, quasiperiodic signals. We show that the PV is a powerful tool to identify quasiperiodic signals in highly irregularly sampled data sets. Results. We derive activity-lag functions for 20 putative single stars, where lag is the timescale on which the stellar jitter is measured. Since the ages of all stars are known, we also use this to formulate an activity–age–lag relation which can be used to predict the expected RV jitter of a star given its age and the timescale to be probed. The maximum RV jitter on timescales of decades decreases from over 500 m s−1 for 5 Myr-old stars to 2.3 m s−1 for stars with ages of around 5 Gyr. The decrease in RV jitter when considering a timescale of only 1 d instead of 1 yr is smaller by roughly a factor of 4 for stars with an age of about 5 Myr, and a factor of 1.5 for stars with an age of 5 Gyr. The rate at which the RV jitter increases with lag strongly depends on stellar age and reaches 99% of the maximum RV jitter over a timescale of a few days for stars that are a few million years old, up to presumably decades or longer for stars with an age of a few gigayears.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (S276) ◽  
pp. 530-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Dumusque ◽  
Cristophe Lovis ◽  
Stephane Udry ◽  
Nuno C. Santos

AbstractFor the 451 stars of the HARPS high precision program, we study correlations between the radial-velocity (RV) variation and other parameters of the Cross Correlated Function (CCF). After a careful target selection, we found a very good correlation between the slope of the RV-activity index (log(R'HK)) correlation and the Teff for dwarf stars. This correlation allow us to correct RV from magnetic cycles given the activity index and the Teff.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S293) ◽  
pp. 201-203
Author(s):  
Masashi Omiya ◽  
Bun'ei Sato ◽  
Hiroki Harakawa ◽  
Masayuki Kuzuhara ◽  
Teruyuki Hirano ◽  
...  

AbstractWe have a plan to conduct a Doppler planet search for low-mass planets around nearby middle-to-late M dwarfs using IRD. IRD is the near-infrared high-precision radial velocity instrument for the Subaru 8.2-m telescope. We expect to achieve the accuracy of the radial velocity measurements of 1 m/s using IRD with a frequency comb as a wavelengh calibrator. Thus, we would detect super-Earths in habitable zone and low-mass rocky planets in close-in orbits around late-M dwarfs. In this survey, we aim to understand and discuss statistical properties of low-mass planets around low-mass M dwarfs compared with those derived from theoretical simulations.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S293) ◽  
pp. 68-70
Author(s):  
Duncan J. Wright ◽  
Christopher G. Tinney ◽  
Robert A. Wittenmyer

AbstractDetecting the small velocity amplitudes (≤ 10 m/s) produced by habitable zone rocky planets around M Dwarfs requires radial velocity precisions of a few m s−1. However, an iodine absorption cell, commonly used as a high precision wavelength reference on non-stabilised spectrographs, is not efficient for very red and faint objects like M Dwarfs. Instead, arc lamps have to be used. With the exception of the ultra-stabilised HARPS spectrograph, achieving ~m s−1 calibration with arc lamps has not been possible because typical spectrographs experience drifts of several hundred m s−1 due to local atmospheric changes in pressure and temperature. We outline and present results from an innovative differential wavelength calibration method that enables ~m s−1 precision from non-stabilised, high-resolution spectrographs. This technique allows the detection of rocky planets with radial velocity amplitudes of a few m s−1.


1992 ◽  
Vol 135 ◽  
pp. 167-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaylene Murdoch ◽  
J.B. Hearnshaw

AbstractWith a small telescope and conventional techniques we have achieved external radial-velocity errors for bright stars of only ±50 m/s by using an optical fibre feed between telescope and spectrograph. In a search for low-mass companions to solar-type dwarf stars, intrinsic radial-velocity variability was detected in some IAU radial-velocity standard stars but no convincing evidence was found of the presence of low-mass companions to the dwarfs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (3) ◽  
pp. 4009-4021
Author(s):  
M Lisogorskyi ◽  
S Boro Saikia ◽  
S V Jeffers ◽  
H R A Jones ◽  
J Morin ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The Doppler method of exoplanet detection has been extremely successful, but suffers from contaminating noise from stellar activity. In this work, a model of a rotating star with a magnetic field based on the geometry of the K2 star ϵ Eridani is presented and used to estimate its effect on simulated radial velocity (RV) measurements. A number of different distributions of unresolved magnetic spots were simulated on top of the observed large-scale magnetic maps obtained from 8 yr of spectropolarimetric observations. The RV signals due to the magnetic spots have amplitudes of up to 10 m s−1, high enough to prevent the detection of planets under 20 Earth masses in temperate zones of solar-type stars. We show that the RV depends heavily on spot distribution. Our results emphasize that understanding stellar magnetic activity and spot distribution is crucial for the detection of Earth analogues.


Author(s):  
Joshua M. Epstein

This part describes the agent-based and computational model for Agent_Zero and demonstrates its capacity for generative minimalism. It first explains the replicability of the model before offering an interpretation of the model by imagining a guerilla war like Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq, where events transpire on a 2-D population of contiguous yellow patches. Each patch is occupied by a single stationary indigenous agent, which has two possible states: inactive and active. The discussion then turns to Agent_Zero's affective component and an elementary type of bounded rationality, as well as its social component, with particular emphasis on disposition, action, and pseudocode. Computational parables are then presented, including a parable relating to the slaughter of innocents through dispositional contagion. This part also shows how the model can capture three spatially explicit examples in which affect and probability change on different time scales.


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