Raphaëlle D. Haywood Phd Thesis
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HIDE AND SEEK: RADIAL-VELOCITY SEARCHES FOR PLANETS AROUND ACTIVE STARS Raphaëlle D. Haywood A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2015 Full metadata for this item is available in Research@StAndrews:FullText at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7798 This item is protected by original copyright This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence Hide and seek Radial-Velocity Searches For Planets Around Active Stars by Rapha¨elleD. Haywood Accepted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Astrophysics 3 September 2015 Declaration I, Rapha¨elleD. Haywood, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 33,000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. Date Signature of candidate I was admitted as a research student in September 2011 and as a candidate for the degree of PhD in September 2015; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 2011 and 2015. Date Signature of candidate I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of PhD in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. Date Signature of supervisor i Copyright Agreement In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews we understand that we are giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regula- tions of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. We also understand that the title and the abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that my thesis will be electron- ically accessible for personal or research use unless exempt by award of an embargo as requested below, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. We have obtained any third-party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and migration, or have requested the appropriate embargo below. The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the elec- tronic publication of this thesis: Access to Printed copy and electronic publication of thesis through the University of St Andrews. Date Signature of candidate Date Signature of supervisor iii Collaboration Statement This thesis is the result of my own work carried out at the University of St Andrews between September 2011 and March 2015. Parts of the work presented in this thesis have been published in refereed scientific journals. In all cases the text in the Chapters has been written entirely by me. All Figures, unless explicitly stated in the text have been produced by me. • Chapters 2 and 3 are based on: \Planets and Stellar Activity: Hide and Seek in the CoRoT-7 system", R. D. Haywood, A. Collier Cameron, D. Queloz, S.C.C. Barros, M. Deleuil, R. Fares, M. Gillon, A.F. Lanza, C. Lovis, C. Moutou, F. Pepe, D. Pollacco, A. Santerne, D. S´egransanand Y. C. Unruh, 2014, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy: 443, 2517. I developed the code to produce the results in this work and wrote the manuscript. A. Collier Cameron provided scientific advice. A. Collier Cameron, D. Queloz, M. Deleuil, M. Gillon, A.F. Lanza, C. Lovis, C. Moutou, F. Pepe, D. Pollacco, D. S´egransan and Y. C. Unruh initiated the project. All co-authors provided comments on the final manuscript. • The discussion of the Kepler-10 system in Chapter 3 is based on: \The Kepler- 10 Planetary System Revisited by HARPS-N: A Hot Rocky World and a Solid Neptune-Mass Planet", X. Dumusque, A. S. Bonomo, R. D. Haywood, L. Malavolta, D. S´egransan,L. A. Buchhave, A.C. Cameron, D. W. Latham, E. Molinari, F. Pepe, S. Udry, D. Charbonneau, R. Cosentino, C. D. Dressing, P. Figueira, A. F. M. Fiorenzano, S. Gettel, A. Harutyunyan, K. Horne, M. Lopez-Morales, C. Lovis, M. Mayor, G. Micela, F. Motalebi, V. Nascimbeni, D. Phillips, G. Piotto, D. Pollacco, D. Queloz, K. Rice, D. Sasselov, A. Sozzetti, A. Szentgyorgyi, C. A. Watson, 2014, Astrophysics Journal, 789, 154. I developed the code to produce the Monte Carlo Markov Chain analysis on radial-velocity observations with priors from the photometry. A. S. Bonomo produced the combined analysis of the radial velocities and the photometry. X. Dumusque initiated the project and wrote the final manuscript; however, this Chapter presents results additional to those published, and the text presented was written by me for this thesis. • The discussion of the Kepler-78 system in Chapter 3 is based on: \Measur- ing the Mass of Kepler-78b using a Gaussian Process Model", S.K. Grunblatt, A.W. Howard & R.D. Haywood, 2015, ApJ, 808, 127. S. K. Grunblatt devel- oped the code to produce the results presented in this paper. A. W. Howard initiated the project. I provided substantial scientific advice and comments to the manuscript. S. K. Grunblatt wrote the final manuscript; however, this Chapter presents results additional to those published, and the text presented was written by me for this thesis. v • Chapter 4 is based on: \The Sun as a planet-host star: Proxies from SDO images for HARPS radial-velocity variations", R. D. Haywood, A. Collier Cameron, Y. C. Unruh, C. Lovis, A. F. Lanza, J. F. Llama, M. Deleuil, R. Fares, M. Gillon, C. Moutou, F. Pepe, D. Pollacco, D. Queloz, and D. S´egransan,submitted for publication to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astron- omy. I developed the code to produce the results in this work and wrote the manuscript. J.F. Llama modelled the limb-darkening in the SDO/HMI inten- sity images. A. Collier Cameron, Y.C. Unruh and C. Lovis provided scientific advice. All co-authors provided comments on the final manuscript. Abstract The detection of low-mass extra-solar planets through radial-velocity searches is currently limited by the intrinsic magnetic activity of the host stars. The correlated noise that arises from their natural radial-velocity variability can easily mimic or conceal the orbital signals of super-Earth and Earth-mass extra-solar planets. I developed an intuitive and robust data analysis framework in which the activity- induced variations are modelled with a Gaussian process that has the frequency structure of the photometric variations of the star, thus allowing me to determine precise and reliable planetary masses. I applied this technique to three recently discovered planetary systems: CoRoT-7, Kepler-78 and Kepler-10. I determined the masses of the transiting super-Earth CoRoT-7b and the small Neptune CoRoT-7c to be 4:73 ± 0:95 M⊕ and 13:56 ± −3 1:08 M⊕, respectively. The density of CoRoT-7b is 6:61 ± 1:72 g.cm , which is compatible with a rocky composition. I carried out Bayesian model selection to assess the nature of a previously identified signal at 9 days, and found that it is best interpreted as stellar activity. Despite the high levels of activity of its host star, I determined the mass of the Earth-sized planet Kepler-78b to be 1:76 ± 0:18 M⊕. +1:8 −3 With a density of 6:2−1:4 g.cm , it is also a rocky planet. I found the masses of Kepler-10b and Kepler-10c to be 3:31 ± 0:32 M⊕ and 16:25 ± 3:66 M⊕, respectively. +1:1 −3 −3 Their densities, of 6:4−0:7 g.cm and 8:1 ± 1:8 g.cm , imply that they are both of rocky composition { even the 2 Earth-radius planet Kepler-10c! In parallel, I deepened our understanding of the physical origin of stellar radial- velocity variability through the study of the Sun, which is the only star whose surface can be imaged at high resolution. I found that the full-disc magnetic flux is an excellent proxy for activity-induced radial-velocity variations; this result may become key to breaking the activity barrier in coming years. I also found that in the case of CoRoT-7, the suppression of convective blueshift leads to radial-velocity variations with an rms of 1.82 m.s−1, while the modula- tion induced by the presence of dark spots on the rotating stellar disc has an rms of 0.46 m.s−1. For the Sun, I found these contributions to be 2.22 m.s−1 and 0.14 m.s−1, respectively. These results suggest that for slowly rotating stars, the suppres- sion of convective blueshift is the dominant contributor to the activity-modulated radial-velocity signal, rather than the rotational Doppler shift of the flux blocked by starspots. vii Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my supervisor Andrew for his unwavering support throughout my PhD. I enjoyed our numerous debug sessions, which you always made time for despite your Head of School duties. Your boundless enthusiasm has made research more fun than I would have ever imagined! Thank you also for send- ing me on all those conferences and observing trips { I have discovered much more than exoplanets in the past three years! I am also very grateful to my first ever journal referee, Suzanne Aigrain, who intro- duced me to the power of Gaussian processes { a cornerstone in my thesis work.