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This paper reports Very Large Array observations at 325 and 1425 MHz (90cm and 20cm) during and near the periastron passage of HD 80606b on 2007 November 20. We obtain flux density limits (3-sigma) of 1.7 mJy and 48 microJy at 325 and 1425 MHz, respectively, equivalent to planetary luminosity limits of 2.3 x 10^{24} erg/s and 2.7 x 10^{23} erg/s. These are well above the Jovian value (at 40 MHz) of 2 x 10^{18} erg/s. The motivation for these observations was that the planetary magnetospheric emission is driven by a stellar wind-planetary magnetosphere interaction so that the planetary luminosity would be elevated. Near periastron, HD 80606b might be as much as 3000 times more luminous than Jupiter. Recent transit observations of HD 80606b provide stringent constraints on the planetary mass and radius, and, because of the planets highly eccentric orbit, its rotation period is likely to be pseudo-synchronized to its orbital period, allowing a robust estimate of the former. We are able to make robust estimates of the emission frequency of the planetary magnetospheric emission and find it to be around 60--90 MHz. We compare HD 80606b to other high-eccentricity systems and assess the detection possibilities for both near-term and more distant future systems. Of the known high eccentricity planets, only HD 80606b is likely to be detectable, as HD 20782B b and HD 4113b are both likely to have weaker magnetic field strengths. Both the forthcoming EVLA low band system and the Low Frequency Array may be able to improve upon our limits for HD 80606b, and do so at a more optimum frequency. If the low-frequency component of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA-lo) and a future lunar radio array are able to approach their thermal noise limits, they should be able to detect an HD 80606b-like planet, unless the planets luminosity increases by substantially less than a factor of 3000.
Aims: Several studies suggest that the activity level of a planet-host star can be influenced by the presence of a close-by orbiting planet. Moreover, the interaction mechanisms that have been proposed, magnetic interaction and tidal interaction, exhibit a very different dependence on orbital separation between the star and the planet. A detection of activity enhancement and characterization of its dependence on planetary orbital distance can, in principle, allow us to characterize the physical mechanism behind the activity enhancement. Methods: We used the HARPS-N spectrograph to measure the stellar activity level of HD 80606 during the planetary periastron passage and compared the activity measured to that close to apastron. Being characterized by an eccentricity of 0.93 and an orbital period of 111 days, the systems extreme variation in orbital separation makes it a perfect target to test our hypothesis. Results: We find no evidence for a variation in the activity level of the star as a function of planetary orbital distance, as measured by all activity indicators employed log($R_{HK}$), H$_alpha$, NaI, and HeI. None of the models employed, whether magnetic interaction or tidal interaction, provides a good description of the data. Conclusions: We find no evidence for star-planet interaction in HD,80606 at the moment of the periastron passage of its very eccentric planet. The straightforward explanation for the non-detection is the absence of interaction as a result of a low magnetic field strength on either the planet or the star and of the low level of tidal interaction between the two. However, we cannot exclude two scenarios: i) the interaction can be instantaneous and of magnetic origin, being concentrated on the substellar point and its surrounding area, and ii) the interaction can lead to a delayed activity enhancement. (abridged)
The detection of a super-Earth and three mini-Neptunes transiting the bright ($V$ = 9.2 mag) star HD 108236 (also known as TOI-1233) was recently reported on the basis of TESS and ground-based light curves. We perform a first characterisation of the HD 108236 planetary system through high-precision CHEOPS photometry and improve the transit ephemerides and system parameters. We characterise the host star through spectroscopic analysis and derive the radius with the infrared flux method. We constrain the stellar mass and age by combining the results obtained from two sets of stellar evolutionary tracks. We analyse the available TESS light curves and one CHEOPS transit light curve for each known planet in the system. We find that HD 108236 is a Sun-like star with $R_{star}=0.877pm0.008 R_{odot}$, $M_{star}=0.869^{+0.050}_{-0.048} M_{odot}$, and an age of $6.7_{-5.1}^{+4.0}$ Gyr. We report the serendipitous detection of an additional planet, HD 108236 f, in one of the CHEOPS light curves. For this planet, the combined analysis of the TESS and CHEOPS light curves leads to a tentative orbital period of about 29.5 days. From the light curve analysis, we obtain radii of $1.615pm0.051$, $2.071pm0.052$, $2.539_{-0.065}^{+0.062}$, $3.083pm0.052$, and $2.017_{-0.057}^{+0.052}$ $R_{oplus}$ for planets HD 108236 b to HD 108236 f, respectively. These values are in agreement with previous TESS-based estimates, but with an improved precision of about a factor of two. We perform a stability analysis of the system, concluding that the planetary orbits most likely have eccentricities smaller than 0.1. We also employ a planetary atmospheric evolution framework to constrain the masses of the five planets, concluding that HD 108236 b and HD 108236 c should have an Earth-like density, while the outer planets should host a low mean molecular weight envelope.
We present X-ray and radio monitoring observations of the gamma-ray binary PSR J2032+4127/MT91 213 during its periastron passage in late 2017. Dedicated Chandra, XMM-Newton,NuSTAR X-ray observations and VLA radio observations of this long orbit (50 years), 143 ms pulsar/Be star system clearly revealed flux and spectral variability during the passage. The X-ray spectrum hardened near periastron, with a significant decrease in the power-law photon index from Gamma ~ 2 to 1.2 and evidence of an increased absorption column density. We identified a possible spectral break at a few keV in the spectrum that suggests synchrotron cooling. A coincident radio and X-ray flare occurred one week after periastron, which is possibly the result of the pulsar wind interacting with the Be stellar disk and generating synchrotron radiation. However, a multi-wavelength comparison indicate that the X-ray and radio spectra cannot be simply connected by a single power-law component. Hence, the emission in these two energy bands must originate from different particle populations.
The inflated transiting hot Jupiter HD 209458b is one of the best studied objects since the beginning of exoplanet characterization. Transmission observations of this system between the mid infrared and the far ultraviolet have revealed the signature of atomic, molecular, and possibly aerosol species in the lower atmosphere of the planet, as well as escaping hydrogen and metals in the upper atmosphere. From a re-analysis of near-ultraviolet (NUV) transmission observations of HD 209458b, we detect ionized iron (Fe II) absorption in a 100 A-wide range around 2370 A, lying beyond the planetary Roche lobe. However, we do not detect absorption of equally strong Fe II lines expected to be around 2600 A. Further, we find no evidence for absorption by neutral magnesium (Mg I), ionized magnesium (Mg II), nor neutral iron (Fe I). These results avoid the conflict with theoretical models previously found by Vidal-Madjar et al. (2013), which detected Mg I but did not detect Mg II from this same data set. Our results indicate that hydrodynamic escape is strong enough to carry atoms as heavy as iron beyond the planetary Roche lobe, even for planets less irradiated than the extreme ultra-hot-Jupiters such as WASP-12b and KELT-9b. The detection of iron and non-detection of magnesium in the upper atmosphere of HD 209458b can be explained by a model in which the lower atmosphere forms (hence, sequesters) primarily magnesium-bearing condensates, rather than iron condensates. This is suggested by current microphysical models. The inextricable synergy between upper- and lower-atmosphere properties highlights the value of combining observations that probe both regions.
The Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS) is a project which aims to detect transits of intermediate-long period planets by refining orbital parameters of the known radial velocity planets using additional data from ground based telescopes, calculating a revised transit ephemeris for the planet, then monitoring the planet host star during the predicted transit window. Here we present the results from three systems that had high probabilities of transiting planets: HD 9446 b & c, HD 43691 b, & HD 179079 b. We provide new radial velocity (RV) measurements that are then used to improve the orbital solution for the known planets. We search the RV data for indications of additional planets in orbit and find that HD 9446 shows a strong linear trend of 4.8$sigma$. Using the newly refined planet orbital solutions, which include a new best-fit solution for the orbital period of HD 9446 c, and an improved transit ephemerides, we found no evidence of transiting planets in the photometry for each system. Transits of HD 9446 b can be ruled out completely and transits HD 9446 c & HD 43691 b can be ruled out for impact parameters up to b = 0.5778 and b = 0.898 respectively due to gaps in the photometry. A transit of HD 179079 b cannot be ruled out however due to the relatively small size of this planet compared to the large star and thus low signal to noise. We determine properties of the three host stars through spectroscopic analysis and find through photometric analysis that HD 9446 exhibits periodic variability.