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High-Precision Time-Series Photometry for the Discovery and Characterization of Transiting Exoplanets

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High-Precision Time-Series Photometry for the Discovery and Characterization of Transiting Exoplanets University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-2015 High-precision time-series photometry for the discovery and characterization of transiting exoplanets. Karen Alicia Collins 1962- University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Part of the Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons, and the Physics Commons Recommended Citation Collins, Karen Alicia 1962-, "High-precision time-series photometry for the discovery and characterization of transiting exoplanets." (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2104. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/2104 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HIGH-PRECISION TIME-SERIES PHOTOMETRY FOR THE DISCOVERY AND CHARACTERIZATION OF TRANSITING EXOPLANETS By Karen A. Collins B.S., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1984 M.S., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1990 M.S., University of Louisville, 2008 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky May 2015 HIGH-PRECISION TIME-SERIES PHOTOMETRY FOR THE DISCOVERY AND CHARACTERIZATION OF TRANSITING EXOPLANETS By Karen A. Collins B.S., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1984 M.S., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1990 M.S., University of Louisville, 2008 A Dissertation Approved On April 17, 2015 by the following Dissertation Committee: Dissertation Director Dr. John F. Kielkopf Dr. James Lauroesch Dr. Gamini Sumanesekera Dr. John F. Naber Dr. Gerard M. Williger ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to sincerely thank my research advisor and dissertation director, Dr. John F. Kielkopf, for his guidance, for somehow working uncountable all night sessions to support my research while maintaining his daytime teaching responsibilities, for his tireless efforts to build Moore Observatory into a competitive research facility and to keep it in top operating condition, and for just being a kind and thoughtful mentor and friend. I would also like to thank my high school mathematics teacher, Gerald Hite, who took me under his wing and set me on a path toward the mathematically rich fields of science and engineering. I would like to thank my parents, Betty Ann Causey and Wilton Eugene Collins, for providing me the opportunity to obtain my BSEE degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, which equipped me with a solid educational foundation and enabled my pursuit of advanced degrees. I would like to thank Dr. Gerard M. Williger for opening a connection with the KELT team. I would like to thank the KELT team leaders, Dr. B. Scott Gaudi, Dr. Keivan G. Stassun, and Dr. Joshua Pepper who have graciously extended incredible research and learning opportunities to me, and I would like to thank KELT science team members, Dr. Thomas G. Beatty, Dr. Jason D. Eastman, and Robert J. Siverd, for sharing experience and knowledge that have greatly enriched my research experience. I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, Dr. James Lauroesch, Dr. Gamini Sumanesekera, Dr. John F. Naber, and Dr. Gerard M. Williger, for supporting my research and graciously agreeing to participate as committee members. I would like to thank my best friends Beanie, Emily, Jenny, Georgia, Nicky, iii Snoopy, Abbie, and Zoey for (mostly) quiet friendship and companionship during many long nights of observing, AstroImageJ coding, and writing. And finally, thanks to my partner, Angela Dee White, who encouraged me to follow a path that is important and rewarding to me, even at the expense of living on opposite day/night schedules for years. This research was supported by graduate fellowships from the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium (KSGC). This research has made use of the Exoplanet Orbit Database and the Exoplanet Data Explorer at exoplanets.org, the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia at exoplanets.eu, the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France, and the Systemic Console software package for RV and TTV analysis. I would like to thank Antonio Claret for computing the quadratic limb darkening coefficients for the CBB and Open filter bands which were critical to properly fitting many of the light curves presented herein. iv ABSTRACT HIGH-PRECISION TIME-SERIES PHOTOMETRY FOR THE DISCOVERY AND CHARACTERIZATION OF TRANSITING EXOPLANETS Karen A. Collins April 17, 2015 The discovery of more than a thousand planets orbiting stars other than the Sun (i.e. exoplanets) over the past 20 years has shown that planetary systems are commonplace in the Milky Way galaxy. However, these discoveries are only a starting point in the quest to answer one of the most compelling questions posed by mankind for centuries – "are we alone in the universe?". This research aims to help build the foundation needed to search for that answer by optimizing data reduction techniques, determining and refining fundamental properties of known exoplanets, and searching for new exoplanets. Many exoplanets have been discovered using the radial velocity (RV) technique to measure small variations in a star’s motion that are gravitational induced by an orbiting planet. The RV signal reveals the planetary mass, orbital period, and orbital eccentricity. If an exoplanet crosses the face of its host star (i.e. transits) from the perspective of the observer, it causes an apparent periodic dimming of the star. The depth and shape of those brightness variations reveal the planet’s radius, its transit time, and some orbital characteristics. Combining the mass and radius measurements, a planet’s mean density can be calculated, thus constraining its composition. During transit, part of the star’s light v passes through the planetary atmosphere on its way to Earth, facilitating atmospheric measurements. Monitoring a planet’s transit timing variations (TTVs) on many epochs may reveal the presence of another planet in the system due to gravitational interactions. I report the development of a new tool, AstroImageJ (AIJ), that provides an interactive environment for the optimal extraction and analysis of high-precision photometry from time-series observations. Based on AIJ photometry, I report high-precision measurements of system parameters and tight upper limits on TTVs derived from global analyses of 23 WASP-12b and 18 Qatar-1b complete transits. I also report the detection of sodium in the atmosphere of the exoplanet HD 189733b, the detection of z0 band emission from the recently discovered hot brown dwarf, KELT-1b, and the discovery and characterization of the transiting hot-Saturn exoplanet, KELT-6b. Data for this research have been collected using the research-grade 0.6 m Moore Observatory RC (MORC) telescope, which is located near Louisville, Kentucky, and operated by the University of Louisville. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT v LIST OF TABLES xiii LIST OF FIGURES xiv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Star and Planet Formation . 2 1.2 The Discovery of Exoplanets . 3 1.3 Hot Jupiter Formation . 4 1.4 Exoplanet Discovery Methods . 5 1.4.1 Direct Imaging . 5 1.4.2 Radial Velocity Method . 6 1.4.3 Transit Method . 7 1.4.4 Transit Timing Variations . 10 1.4.5 Other Methods . 12 1.5 Characterization Methods . 12 1.5.1 Primary Transit Light Curve Modeling . 13 1.5.2 Rossiter-McLaughlin Effect . 16 1.5.3 Characterization of Exoplanet Atmospheres . 18 1.6 Wide-field Transit Surveys . 26 1.6.1 Ground-based . 27 1.6.2 Space-based . 32 vii 2 HIGH-PRECISION PHOTOMETRY 37 2.1 CCD Overview . 37 2.2 CCD Image Calibration . 38 2.2.1 Bias Subtraction . 38 2.2.2 CCD Nonlinearity Correction . 38 2.2.3 Dark Subtraction . 40 2.2.4 Flat-field Correction . 42 2.2.5 Median Combining . 44 2.2.6 Science Image Calibration . 45 2.3 Telescope Guiding . 45 2.4 Defocusing . 47 2.5 Aperture Photometry . 47 2.6 Variable Radius Aperture Photometry . 49 2.7 Differential Photometry . 50 2.8 Comparison Star Selection . 51 2.9 Detrending Time Series Photometry . 54 2.10 Real-time Monitoring of Observations . 55 2.11 Error Calculations . 56 3 INSTRUMENTATION 60 3.1 MORC Telescope . 60 3.2 CCD camera . 62 3.3 Filters . 63 3.4 Dome Enclosure . 65 3.5 Observatory Control Software . 67 3.5.1 XmTel Telescope Mount Control . 67 3.5.2 XmCCD Camera Control . 68 3.5.3 PyDome and PyFocus . 68 3.5.4 Guiding Scripts . 71 viii 3.5.5 Time of Day . 73 3.5.6 Remote Operation . 74 4 ANALYSIS TOOLS 76 4.1 AstroImageJ . 76 4.1.1 AIJ Toolbar . 77 4.1.2 Astronomical Image Display . 78 4.1.3 Data Processor . 81 4.1.4 Multi-Aperture . 84 4.1.5 Multi-Plot . 87 4.1.6 Light Curve Fitting and Detrending . 92 4.1.7 Comparison Ensemble Management . 97 4.1.8 Coordinate Converter . 97 4.1.9 FITS Header Editor . 101 4.1.10 Astrometry/Plate Solving . 103 4.1.11 Image Alignment . 106 4.1.12 AstroImageJ Updater . 106 4.2 EXOFAST . 108 4.3 Multi-EXOFAST . 109 5 WASP-12b CHARACTERIZATION AND TTV ANALYSIS 111 5.1 Introduction . 111 5.2 Observations . 112 5.3 Data Reduction . 112 5.4 Global Fit . 114 5.5 System Parameter Results . 119 5.6 TTV Results . 123 5.7 Conclusions . 127 ix 6 QATAR-1b CHARACTERIZATION AND TTV ANALYSIS 131 6.1 Introduction .
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