No Arabic abstract
We present spectroscopy and photometry of GD 448, a detached white dwarf - M dwarf binary with a period of 2.47h. We find that the NaI 8200A feature is composed of narrow emission lines due to irradiation of the M dwarf by the white dwarf within broad absorption lines that are essentially unaffected by heating. Combined with an improved spectroscopic orbit and gravitational red shift measurement from spectra of the H-alpha line, we are able to derive masses for the white dwarf and M dwarf directly (0.41 +/- 0.01 solar masses and 0.096 +/- 0.004 solar masses, respectively). We use a simple model of the CaII emission lines to establish the radius of the M dwarf assuming the emission from its surface to be proportional to the incident flux per unit area from the white dwarf. The radius derived is 0.125 +/- 0.020 solar radii. The M dwarf appears to be a normal main-sequence star in terms of its mass and radius and is less than half the size of its Roche lobe. The thermal timescale of the M dwarf is much longer than the cooling age of the white dwarf so we conclude that the M dwarf was unaffected by the common-envelope phase. The anomalous width of the H-alpha emission from the M dwarf remains to be explained, but the strengh of the line may be due to X-ray heating of the M dwarf due to accretion onto the white dwarf from the M dwarf wind.
We observed spectroscopically the eclipsing binary system T-Cyg1-01385 in order to determine physical properties of the components. The double-lined nature of the system is revealed for the first time and the radial velocities are obtained for both stars. We have derived masses, radii and luminosities for both components. Analyses of the radial velocities and the KeplerCam and the T$r$ES light curves yielded masses of M$_1$=1.059$pm$0.032 Msun ~and M$_2$=0.342$pm$0.017 {Msun} and radii of R$_1$=1.989$pm$0.022 {Rsun} and R$_2$=0.457$pm$0.013 {Rsun}. Locations of the low-mass companion in the mass-radius and mass-effective temperature planes and comparison with the other low-mass stars show that the secondary star appears just at the transition from partially to fully convective interiors for the M dwarfs. When compared to stellar evolution models, the luminosities and effective temperatures of the components are consistent with Z=0.004 and an age of about 6 Gyr. A distance to the system was calculated as d=355$pm$7 pc using the BV and JHK magnitudes.
We derive masses and radii for both components in the single-lined eclipsing binary HAT-TR-205-013, which consists of a F7V primary and a late M-dwarf secondary. The systems period is short, $P=2.230736 pm 0.000010$ days, with an orbit indistinguisha
We report the detection of a planetary companion with a minimum mass of m sin i = 0.0771 M_Jup = 24.5 M_Earth to the nearby (d = 9.4 pc) M2.5V star GJ 176. The star was observed as part of our M dwarf planet search at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET). The detection is based on 5 years of high-precision differential radial velocity (RV) measurements using the High-Resolution-Spectrograph (HRS). The orbital period of the planet is 10.24 d. GJ 176 thus joins the small (but increasing) sample of M dwarfs hosting short-periodic planets with minimum masses in the Neptune-mass range. Low mass planets could be relatively common around M dwarfs and the current detections might represent the tip of a rocky planet population.
We report the discovery of a substellar companion to 2MASS J02192210-3925225, a young M6 $gamma$ candidate member of the Tucana-Horologium association (30 - 40 Myr). This L4 $gamma$ companion has been discovered with seeing-limited direct imaging observations; at a 4 separation (160AU) and a modest contrast ratio, it joins the very short list of young low-mass companions amenable to study without the aid of adaptive optics, enabling its characterization with a much wider suite of instruments than is possible for companions uncovered by high-contrast imaging surveys. With a model-dependent mass of 12-15MJup, it straddles the boundary between the planet and brown dwarf mass regimes. We present near-infrared spectroscopy of this companion and compare it to various similar objects uncovered in the last few years. The J0219-3925 system falls in a sparsely populated part of the host mass versus mass ratio diagram for binaries; the dearth of known similar companions may be due to observational biases in previous low-mass companion searches.
Precise and accurate parameters for late-type (late K and M) dwarf stars are important for characterization of any orbiting planets, but such determinations have been hampered by these stars complex spectra and dissimilarity to the Sun. We exploit an empirically calibrated method to estimate spectroscopic effective temperature ($T_{rm{eff}}$) and the Stefan-Boltzmann law to determine radii of 183 nearby K7-M7 single stars with a precision of 2-5%. Our improved stellar parameters enable us to develop model-independent relations between $T_{rm{eff}}$ or absolute magnitude and radius, as well as between color and $T_{rm{eff}}$. The derived $T_{rm{eff}}$-radius relation depends strongly on [Fe/H], as predicted by theory. The relation between absolute $K_S$ magnitude and radius can predict radii accurate to $simeq$3%. We derive bolometric corrections to the $VR_CI_CgrizJHK_S$ and Gaia passbands as a function of color, accurate to 1-3%. We confront the reliability of predictions from Dartmouth stellar evolution models using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo to find the values of unobservable model parameters (mass, age) that best reproduce the observed effective temperature and bolometric flux while satisfying constraints on distance and metallicity as Bayesian priors. With the inferred masses we derive a semi-empirical mass-absolute magnitude relation with a scatter of 2% in mass. The best-agreement models over-predict stellar $T_{rm{eff}}$s by an average of 2.2% and under-predict stellar radii by 4.6%, similar to differences with values from low-mass eclipsing binaries. These differences are not correlated with metallicity, mass, or indicators of activity, suggesting issues with the underlying model assumptions e.g., opacities or convective mixing length.