Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Item
    On the Chemical Abundance of HR 8799 and the Planet c
    (London : Institute of Physics Publ., 2020) Wang, Ji; Wang, Jason J.; Ma, Bo; Chilcote, Jeffrey; Ertel, Steve; Guyon, Olivier; Ilyin, Ilya; Jovanovic, Nemanja; Kalas, Paul; Lozi, Julien; Macintosh, Breuce; Strassmeier, Klaus G.; Stone, Jordan
    Comparing chemical abundances of a planet and the host star reveals the origin and formation pathway of the planet. Stellar abundance is measured with high-resolution spectroscopy. Planet abundance, on the other hand, is usually inferred from low-resolution data. For directly imaged exoplanets, the data are available from a slew of high-contrast imaging/spectroscopy instruments. Here, we study the chemical abundance of HR 8799 and its planet c. We measure stellar abundance using LBT/PEPSI (R = 120,000) and archival HARPS data: stellar [C/H], [O/H], and C/O are 0.11 ± 0.12, 0.12 ± 0.14, and ${0.54}_{-0.09}^{+0.12}$, all consistent with solar values. We conduct atmospheric retrieval using newly obtained Subaru/CHARIS data together with archival Gemini/GPI and Keck/OSIRIS data. We model the planet spectrum with petitRADTRANS and conduct retrieval using PyMultiNest. Retrieved planetary abundance can vary by ~0.5 dex, from sub-stellar to stellar C and O abundances. The variation depends on whether strong priors are chosen to ensure a reasonable planet mass. Moreover, comparison with previous works also reveals inconsistency in abundance measurements. We discuss potential issues that can cause the inconsistency, e.g., systematics in individual data sets and different assumptions in the physics and chemistry in retrieval. We conclude that no robust retrieval can be obtained unless the issues are fully resolved.
  • Item
    An Aligned Orbit for the Young Planet V1298 Tau b
    (London : Institute of Physics Publ., 2022) Johnson, Marshall C.; David, Trevor J.; Petigura, Erik A.; Isaacson, Howard T.; Van Zandt, Judah; Ilyin, Ilya; Strassmeier, Klaus; Mallonn, Matthias; Zhou, George; Mann, Andrew W.; Livingston, John H.; Luger, Rodrigo; Dai, Fei; Weiss, Lauren M.; Močnik, Teo; Giacalone, Steven; Hill, Michelle L.; Rice, Malena; Blunt, Sarah; Rubenzahl, Ryan; Dalba, Paul A.; Esquerdo, Gilbert A.; Berlind, Perry; Calkins, Michael L.; Foreman-Mackey, Daniel
    The alignment of planetary orbits with respect to the stellar rotation preserves information on their dynamical histories. Measuring this angle for young planets helps illuminate the mechanisms that create misaligned orbits for older planets, as different processes could operate over timescales ranging from a few megayears to a gigayear. We present spectroscopic transit observations of the young exoplanet V1298 Tau b; we update the age of V1298 Tau to be 28 ± 4 Myr based on Gaia EDR3 measurements. We observed a partial transit with Keck/HIRES and LBT/PEPSI, and detected the radial velocity anomaly due to the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect. V1298 Tau b has a prograde, well-aligned orbit, with λ=4-10+7 deg. By combining the spectroscopically measured v sin i∗ and the photometrically measured rotation period of the host star we also find that the orbit is aligned in 3D, ψ=8-7+4 deg. Finally, we combine our obliquity constraints with a previous measurement for the interior planet V1298 Tau c to constrain the mutual inclination between the two planets to be i mut = 0° ± 19°. This measurements adds to the growing number of well-aligned planets at young ages, hinting that misalignments may be generated over timescales of longer than tens of megayears. The number of measurements, however, is still small, and this population may not be representative of the older planets that have been observed to date. We also present the derivation of the relationship between i mut, λ, and i for the two planets.
  • Item
    KELT-9 as an Eclipsing Double-lined Spectroscopic Binary: A Unique and Self-consistent Solution to the System
    (London : Institute of Physics Publ., 2022) Pai Asnodkar, Anusha; Wang, Ji; Gaudi, B. Scott; Cauley, P. Wilson; Eastman, Jason D.; Ilyin, Ilya; Strassmeier, Klaus; Beatty, Thomas
    Transiting hot Jupiters present a unique opportunity to measure absolute planetary masses due to the magnitude of their radial velocity signals and known orbital inclination. Measuring planet mass is critical to understanding atmospheric dynamics and escape under extreme stellar irradiation. Here we present the ultrahot Jupiter system KELT-9 as a double-lined spectroscopic binary. This allows us to directly and empirically constrain the mass of the star and its planetary companion without reference to any theoretical stellar evolutionary models or empirical stellar scaling relations. Using data from the PEPSI, HARPS-N, and TRES spectrographs across multiple epochs, we apply least-squares deconvolution to measure out-of-transit stellar radial velocities. With the PEPSI and HARPS-N data sets, we measure in-transit planet radial velocities using transmission spectroscopy. By fitting the circular orbital solution that captures these Keplerian motions, we recover a planetary dynamical mass of 2.17 ± 0.56 M J and stellar dynamical mass of 2.11 ± 0.78 M o˙, both of which agree with the discovery paper. Furthermore, we argue that this system, as well as systems like it, are highly overconstrained, providing multiple independent avenues for empirically cross-validating model-independent solutions to the system parameters. We also discuss the implications of this revised mass for studies of atmospheric escape.
  • Item
    Untangling the Sources of Abundance Dispersion in Low-metallicity Stars
    (London : Institute of Physics Publ., 2023) Griffith, Emily J.; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Weinberg, David H.; Ilyin, Ilya; Johnson, James W.; Rodriguez-Martinez, Romy; Strassmeier, Klaus G.
    We measure abundances of 12 elements (Na, Mg, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni) in a sample of 86 metal-poor (−2 ≲ [Fe/H] ≲ −1) subgiant stars in the solar neighborhood. Abundances are derived from high-resolution spectra taken with the Potsdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectroscopic Instrument on the Large Binocular Telescope, modeled using iSpec and MOOG. By carefully quantifying the impact of photon-noise (<0.05 dex for all elements), we robustly measure the intrinsic scatter of abundance ratios. At fixed [Fe/H], the rms intrinsic scatter in [X/Fe] ranges from 0.04 (Cr) to 0.16 dex (Na), with a median of 0.08 dex. Scatter in [X/Mg] is similar, and accounting for [α/Fe] only reduces the overall scatter moderately. We consider several possible origins of the intrinsic scatter with particular attention to fluctuations in the relative enrichment by core-collapse supernovae (CCSN) and Type Ia supernovae and stochastic sampling of the CCSN progenitor mass distribution. The stochastic sampling scenario provides a good quantitative explanation of our data if the effective number of CCSN contributing to the enrichment of a typical sample star is N ∼ 50. At the median metallicity of our sample, this interpretation implies that the CCSN ejecta are mixed over a gas mass ∼6 × 104 M ⊙ before forming stars. The scatter of elemental abundance ratios is a powerful diagnostic test for simulations of star formation, feedback, and gas mixing in the early phases of the Galaxy.