PROGRAMA FONDECYT INFORME FINAL ETAPA 2010 COMISIÓN NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACION CIENTÍFICA Y TECNOLÓGICA VERSION OFICIAL FECHA: 02/11/2011 Nº PROYECTO : 11080271 DURACIÓN : 3 años AÑO ETAPA : 2010 TÍTULO PROYECTO : GROUND-BASED CHARACTERIZATION OF EXTRASOLAR PLANETS AND SYSTEMS DISCIPLINA PRINCIPAL : ASTRONOMIA GRUPO DE ESTUDIO : ASTRON.,COSMOL.Y PAR INVESTIGADOR(A) RESPONSABLE : PATRICIO ROJO ROJO RUBKE DIRECCIÓN : COMUNA : CIUDAD : SANTIAGO REGIÓN : METROPOLITANA FONDO NACIONAL DE DESARROLLO CIENTIFICO Y TECNOLOGICO (FONDECYT) Moneda 1375, Santiago de Chile - casilla 297-V, Santiago 21 Telefono: 2435 4350 FAX 2365 4435 Email: [email protected] INFORME FINAL PROYECTO FONDECYT INICIACION OBJETIVOS Cumplimiento de los Objetivos planteados en la etapa final, o pendientes de cumplir. Recuerde que en esta sección debe referirse a objetivos desarrollados, NO listar actividades desarrolladas. Nº OBJETIVOS CUMPLIMIENTO FUNDAMENTO 1 Preliminary analysis for our extend sample for the TOTAL The pilot program for our phase-velocity pilot phase velocity technique will be presented in was succesfully published (Cubillos et al 2011, conferences and journals. A&A 529, 88). Unfortunately, the conclusions is that will be better to wait for the next generation of instrumentation before expanding this technique to new systems. 2 Transit timing results for our extended sample TOTAL As part of his dissertation work, Sergio Hoyer will be presented in conferences and journals. monitored over a dozen planets collecting more than 60 transits to perform Transit timing analysis. Our first paper is already published on the planet OGLE-TR-111b (Hoyer et al 2011, ApJ 733, 53) and a second paper has just been accepted for the planet WASP-5b (Hoyer et al, ApJ accepted). Two more publications are expected to be submitted before the end of this year. Our results have been presented at several specialized conferences. 3 New data for Transit spectroscopy targets will be TOTAL We are analyzing new data collected this year on obtained. newly discovered bright southern transiting planets. Also, applications for new data has been submitted in the last call for proposals. 4 Develop and Implement new techniques to be TOTAL Four new methods have been identified as used in ground-based characterization of promising and are currently being followed as exoplanets part of this project (See Results section for details): (1) Radial Velocity search targeted for bright-transiting exoplanets (CHEPS survey using HARPS and Coralie Spectrographs, long-term status granted on the latter); (2) Exoplanet host star characterization (Spectral studies of poorly studied stars -late MLT dwarfs- and survey of planetary search sample); (3) Occultation measurements of thermal emission from exoplanetary atmospheres, and (4) Radial velocity study of exoplanets around red-giants stars. Otro(s) aspecto(s) que Ud. considere importante(s) en la evaluación del cumplimiento de objetivos planteados en la propuesta original o en las modificaciones autorizadas por los Consejos. RESULTS OBTAINED: For each specific goal, describe or summarize the results obtained. Relate each one to work already published and/or manuscripts submitted. In the Annex section include additional information deemed pertinent and relevant to the evaluation process. The maximum length for this section is 5 pages. (Arial or Verdana, font size 10). Several techniques and approaches have been studied with the aim of accurate char- acterization of extrasolar planets from ground based telescopes. • Search for Transit Timing Variations: We have recently expanded our pilot transit monitoring survey to encompass the brightest southern transit- ing planets: we have named our survey Transit Monitoring from the South (TraMoS project). From the original sample that has been monitored since 2008, we already have two papers from my Ph.D. student (Hoyer et al. 2011, ApJ 733, 53; Hoyer et al. 2011, ApJ accepted), and we are expected to submit two more publications in the coming months. As part of the extension to the original project, we have already been allocated over 100 new hours on the remotely-operated SARA telescope and we are in the process of performing the observations. We have also submitted a new application for more time with this telescope and we are developing pipelines for a quick and optimal analysis of the data. We have also presented our results in several international conferences. To complement sparse data on some of the targets we have joined efforts with other transit monitoring groups (e.g. Adams et al 2011, ApJ accepted) • Transit Spectroscopy: We have analyzed data from two transits of the ex- trasolar planet HD 209458b. We use SINFONI at the VLT to precisely and efficiently measure the time series of the H{band spectra for this system. After accurate and careful removal of systematic effects (including removal of telluric contamination) the data is correlated with precise models. The result indicates the ground{based detection of water in the extrasolar atmosphere with a con- fidence of 2.8 σ. This borderline result needed some extra analysis that has delayed publication (Rojo et al. in prep) In collaboration with Europeans from ESO, we have successfully observed three transits of GJ1214b duiring this year and the analysis are well underway, we obtained photometry simultaneously and the results might probably be worth two papers. 1 Through different collaborations we have also applied for telescope time at 8m- and 4m-class telescopes to obtain primary transit data. Telescope time will be continuosuly applied for promising new systems that are visible from the southern hemisphere. Aditionally, my student Nicola Astudillo has just finished his master thesis. He worked on data from the ESO and Subaru archives and developed a new telluric correction method that does not requires simultaneous observation of bright reference star to correct for Earth's atmospheric absorptions. A publication is being prepared with new atomic detections on HD209458b (Astudillo et al 2012, in prep) • Phase Velocity: The data from the high-resolution IR spectrograph Phoenix at the Gemini South telescope has been fully analyzed. The result is a non- detection of the planetary spectrum, however we are able to place constrains on the detectability and suggest an optimal observing strategy that should warrant positive detections in future attempts. The M.Sc. student Patricio Cubillos worked on this for his thesis (Cubillos et al 2010, A&A 529, 88). • Explore different techniques to characterize extrasolar planets using ground-based telescopes: Different techniques and alliances have been ex- plored on this topic. In particular, three new approaches have been added to this project: { Radial Velocity (RV) Search for Bright Exoplanets: Radial velocity is cur- rently the most successful method to search for exoplanets. In particular, this method detected the two brightest transiting planets, HD209458b and HD189733b. They are the better suited planets for atmospheric charac- terization, which is evidenced in the formidable list of over 1000 refereed papers to this date. However, both these planets have northern declina- tions and are difficult to observe from the southern hemisphere. We formed a collaboration and started a survey for exoplanets: the Calan- Hertfordshire Extrasolar Planet Search (CHEPS). Our focus is the search for benchmark bright transiting exoplanets in the southern hemisphere in a stellar population that is not targeted by other RV surveys. We use the HARPS and Coralie spectrograph. Two papers has already been published (Jenkins et al. 2009, MNRAS 398, 911; Jenkins et al 2011, A&A 531, 8) and several others are in preparation, including the detection of some very bright close-in planets with southern declinations. We are also 2 performing photometric follow-up to our candidates to confirm or rule-out detection of transits. { Radial Velocity study of planets around evolved stars Only a handful of planets are known around these evolved stars. They are a necessary pop- ulation to study to draw conclusions for post-main sequence evolution of planetary systems and they currently provide the only means to study planetary systems around massive stars, since during their main sequence stage their spectra is too hot and devoid of enough spectral features to accurately determine Doppler velocities. Ph.D. student Mat´ıasJones has made this topic his dissertation project with the study of almost 100 stars that belong to the subgiant and horizontal-branch populations. The first paper on the sample characterization is accepted (Jones et al 2011, A&A accepted). Both the detection or non-detection of exoplanets in this project will pro- vide a statistically significant constrain on the nature of exoplanets around massive stars and/or about its fate as the star evolves. { Host star characterization: In order to improve the discovery yield of exoplanet searches, it is necessary to investigate if the appearence of ex- oplanets is biased by host star properties. In fact, it is well known that planet hosts tend to be more metal-rich for main sequence stars with spec- tral types FGK (Fischer and Valenti 2005, ApJ 622, 1102). However, it is not clear that this relationship holds for the more abundant later type stars, partly because there are fewer surveys exploring this population and partly because the metallicity of such stars has not been well calibrated. Therefore, I formed new alliances and started a couple projects to better understand the poorly