No Arabic abstract
The USNO ground-based astrometric program URAT-Bright in combination with the Hipparcos mission epoch astrometry provides precise proper motions of a thousand bright stars in the southern hemisphere on a time basis of about 25 years. Small but statistically significant differences between these proper motions and Gaia EDR3 data can reveal long-period exoplanets similar to Jupiter in the nearest star systems. The presence of such a planet orbiting the magnetically active dwarf $epsilon$ Eri is confirmed from both URAT--Hipparcos--EDR3 data and Hipparcos--EDR3 data with a corresponding projected velocity of $(+5,+8)$ and $(+6,+13)$ m s$^{-1}$, respectively. These signals are formally significant at a 0.989 and 1.0 confidence. We conclude that the newest astrometric results confirm the existence of a long-period exoplanet orbiting $epsilon$ Eri, which was marginally detected from precision radial velocity measurements some 20 years ago.
We use a combination of Hipparcos space mission data with the USNO dedicated ground-based astrometric program URAT-Bright designed to complement and verify Gaia results for the brightest stars in the south to estimate the small perturbations of observed proper motions caused by exoplanets. One of the 1423 bright stars in the program, $delta$ Pav, stands out with a small proper motion difference between our long-term estimate and Gaia EDR3 value, which corresponds to a projected velocity of $(-17,+13)$ m s$^{-1}$. This difference is significant at a 0.994 confidence in the RA component, owing to the proximity of the star and the impressive precision of proper motions. The effect is confirmed by a comparison of long-term EDR3-Hipparcos and short-term Gaia EDR3 proper motions at a smaller velocity, but with formally absolute confidence. We surmise that the close Solar analog $delta$ Pav harbors a long-period exoplanet similar to Jupiter.
We report the spectroscopic confirmation of the Kepler object of interest KOI-183.01 (Kepler-423b), a half-Jupiter mass planet transiting an old solar-like star every 2.7 days. Our analysis is the first to combine the full Kepler photometry (quarters 1-17) with high-precision radial velocity measurements taken with the FIES spectrograph at the Nordic Optical Telescope. We simultaneously modelled the photometric and spectroscopic data-sets using Bayesian approach coupled with Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. We found that the Kepler pre-search data conditioned (PDC) light curve of KOI-183 exhibits quarter-to-quarter systematic variations of the transit depth, with a peak-to-peak amplitude of about 4.3 % and seasonal trends reoccurring every four quarters. We attributed these systematics to an incorrect assessment of the quarterly variation of the crowding metric. The host star KOI-183 is a G4 dwarf with $M_star=0.85pm0.04$ M$_rm{Sun}$, $R_star=0.95pm0.04$ R$_rm{Sun}$, $T_mathrm{eff}=5560pm80$ K, $[M/H]=-0.10pm0.05$ dex, and with an age of $11pm2$ Gyr. The planet KOI-183b has a mass of $M_mathrm{p}=0.595pm0.081$ M$_mathrm{Jup}$ and a radius of $R_mathrm{p}=1.192pm0.052$ R$_mathrm{Jup}$, yielding a planetary bulk density of $rho_mathrm{p}=0.459pm0.083$ g/cm$^{3}$. The radius of KOI-183b is consistent with both theoretical models for irradiated coreless giant planets and expectations based on empirical laws. The inclination of the stellar spin axis suggests that the system is aligned along the line of sight. We detected a tentative secondary eclipse of the planet at a 2-$sigma$ confidence level ($Delta F_{mathrm{ec}}=14.2pm6.6$ ppm) and found that the orbit might have a small non-zero eccentricity of $e=0.019^{+0.028}_{-0.014}$. With a Bond albedo of $A_mathrm{B}=0.037pm0.019$, KOI-183b is one of the gas-giant planets with the lowest albedo known so far.
We report the discovery of WASP-26b, a moderately over-sized Jupiter-mass exoplanet transiting its 11.3-magnitude early-G-type host star (1SWASP J001824.70-151602.3; TYC 5839-876-1) every 2.7566 days. A simultaneous fit to transit photometry and radial-velocity measurements yields a planetary mass of 1.02 +/- 0.03 M_Jup and radius of 1.32 +/- 0.08 R_Jup. The host star, WASP-26, has a mass of 1.12 +/- 0.03 M_sun and a radius of 1.34 +/- 0.06 R_sun and is in a visual double with a fainter K-type star. The two stars are at least a common-proper motion pair with a common distance of around 250 +/- 15 pc and an age of 6 +/- 2 Gy.
Recent surveys indicate that planets in binary systems are more abundant than previously thought, which is in agreement with theoretical work on disc dynamics and planet formation in binaries. In order to measure the abundance and physical characteristics of wide-orbit giant exoplanets in binary systems, we have designed the VIsual Binary Exoplanet survey with Sphere (VIBES) to search for planets in visual binaries. It uses the SPHERE instrument at VLT to search for planets in 23 visual binary and four visual triple systems with ages of <145 Myr and distances of <150 pc. We used the IRDIS dual-band imager on SPHERE to acquire high-contrast images of the sample targets. For each binary, the two components were observed at the same time with a coronagraph masking only the primary star. For the triple star, the tight components were treated as a single star for data reduction. This enabled us to effectively search for companions around 50 individual stars in binaries and four binaries in triples. We derived upper limits of $<$13.7% for the frequency of sub-stellar companions around primaries in visual binaries, $<$26.5% for the fraction of sub-stellar companions around secondaries in visual binaries, and an occurrence rate of $<$9.0% for giant planets and brown dwarfs around either component of visual binaries. We have combined our observations with literature measurements to astrometrically confirm, for the first time, that 20 binaries and two triple systems, which were previously known, are indeed physically bound. Finally, we discovered a third component of the binary HD~121336. The upper limits we derived are compatible with planet formation through the core accretion and the gravitational instability processes in binaries. These limits are also in line with limits found for single star and circumbinary planet search surveys.
Interior models of giant planets traditionally assume that at a given radius (i.e. pressure) the density should be larger than or equal to the one corresponding to a homogeneous, adiabatic stratification throughout the planet (referred to as the outer adiabat). The observations of Jupiters gravity field by Juno combined with the constraints on its atmospheric composition appear to be incompatible with such a profile. In this letter, we show that the above assumption stems from an incorrect understanding of the Schwarzschild-Ledoux criterion, which is only valid on a local scale. In order to fulfil the buoyancy stability condition, the density gradient with pressure in a non-adiabatic region must indeed rise more steeply than the {it local} adiabatic density gradient. However, the density gradient can be smaller than the one corresponding to the outer adiabat at the same pressure because of the higher temperature in an inhomogeneously stratified medium. Deep enough, the density can therefore be lower than the one corresponding to the outer adiabat. We show that this is permitted only if the slope of the local adiabat becomes shallower than the slope of the outer adiabat at the same pressure, as found in recent Jupiter models due to the increase of both specific entropy and adiabatic index with depth. We examine the dynamical stability of this structure and show that it is stable against non-adiabatic perturbations. The possibility of such unconventional density profile in Jupiter complicates further our understanding of the internal structure and evolution of (extrasolar) giant planets.