ALBERT

Description: Context. Detecting and characterising exoworlds around very young stars (age ≤10 Myr) are key aspects of exoplanet demographic studies, especially for understanding the mechanisms and timescales of planet formation and migration. Any reliable theory for such physical phenomena requires a robust observational database to be tested. However, detection using the radial velocity method alone can be very challenging because the amplitude of the signals caused by the magnetic activity of such stars can be orders of magnitude larger than those induced even by massive planets. Aims. We observed the very young (~2 Myr) and very active star V830 Tau with the HARPS-N spectrograph between October 2017 and March 2020 to independently confirm and characterise the previously reported hot Jupiter V830 Tau b (Kb = 68 ± 11 m s−1; mb sin ib = 0.57 ± 0.10 MJup; Pb = 4.927 ± 0.008 d). Methods. Because of the observed ~1 km s−1 radial velocity scatter that can clearly be attributed to the magnetic activity of V830 Tau, we analysed radial velocities extracted with different pipelines and modelled them using several state-of-the-art tools. We devised injection-recovery simulations to support our results and characterise our detection limits. The analysis of the radial velocities was aided by a characterisation of the stellar activity using simultaneous photometric and spectroscopic diagnostics. Results. Despite the high quality of our HARPS-N data and the diversity of tests we performed, we were unable to detect the planet V830 Tau b in our data and cannot confirm its existence. Our simulations show that a statistically significant detection of the claimed planetary Doppler signal is very challenging. Conclusions. It is important to continue Doppler searches for planets around young stars, but utmost care must be taken in the attempt to overcome the technical difficulties to be faced in order to achieve their detection and characterisation. This point must be kept in mind when assessing their occurrence rate, formation mechanisms, and migration pathways, especially without evidence of their existence from photometric transits.

Description: Context. With the growth of comparative exoplanetology, it is becoming increasingly clear that investigating the relationships between inner and outer planets plays a key role in discriminating between competing formation and evolution models. To do so, it is important to probe the inner region of systems that host long-period giants in search of undetected lower-mass planetary companions. Aims. In this work, we present our results on the K-dwarf star BD-11 4672, which is already known to host a long-period giant planet, as the first output of a subsample of the GAPS programme specifically aimed at assessing the impact of inefficient migration of planets formed beyond the snowline by searching for Neptune-mass and super-Earth planetary companions of known longer-period giants. Methods. We used the high-precision HARPS-N observations of BD-11 4672 in conjunction with time series taken from the literature in order to search for additional inner planetary signals to be fitted using differential evolution Markov chain Monte Carlo. The long-term stability of the new orbital solutions was tested with N-body dynamical simulations. Results. We report the detection of BD-11 4672 c, a new Neptune-mass planet with an orbital period of 74.20−0.08+0.06 d, eccentricity of 0.40−0.15+0.13, semimajor axis of 0.30 ± 0.01 au, and minimum mass 15.37−2.81+2.97 M⊕, orbiting slightly outside the inner edge of the optimistic circumstellar habitable zone. In order to assess its impact on the dynamical stability of the habitable zone, we computed the angular momentum deficit of the system, showing that planet c has a severe negative impact on the stability of possible additional lower-mass temperate planets. The BD-11 4672 system is notable for its architecture, hosting both a long-period giant planet and an inner lower-mass planet, the latter being one of the most eccentric Neptune-mass planets known at similar periods.

Description: We present a multiyear survey aimed at collecting (1) high-precision (~5 milli-mag), (2) fast-cadence (~3 min), and (3) relatively long duration (~10 d) multiband photometric series. The goal of the survey is to discover and characterize efficiently variable objects and exoplanetary transits in four fields containing five nearby open clusters spanning a broad range of ages. More in detail, our project will (1) constitute a preparatory survey for the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher for the Northern hemisphere (HARPS-N) mounted at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), which will be used for spectroscopic follow-up of any target of interest that this survey discovers or characterizes, (2) measure rotational periods and estimate the activity level of targets we are already monitoring with HARPS and HARPS-N for exoplanet transit search, and (3) long-term characterization of selected targets of interest in open clusters within the planned K2 fields. In this first paper, we give an overview of the project, and report on the variability of objects within the first of our selected fields, which contains two open clusters: M35 and NGC 2158. We detect 519 variable objects, 273 of which are new discoveries, while the periods of most of the previously known variables are considerably improved.

Description: We present a new reduction pipeline for the VIRCAM@VISTA detector and describe the method developed to obtain high-precision astrometry with the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) data set. We derive an accurate geometric-distortion correction using as calibration field the globular cluster NGC 5139, and showed that we are able to reach a relative astrometric precision of about 8 mas per coordinate per exposure for well-measured stars over a field of view of more than 1 deg 2 . This geometric-distortion correction is made available to the community. As a test bed, we chose a field centred around the globular cluster NGC 6656 from the VVV archive and computed proper motions for the stars within. With 45 epochs spread over four years, we show that we are able to achieve a precision of 1.4 mas yr –1 and to isolate each population observed in the field (cluster, Bulge and Disc) using proper motions. We used proper-motion-selected field stars to measure the motion difference between Galactic disc and bulge stars. Our proper-motion measurements are consistent with UCAC4 and PPMXL, though our errors are much smaller. Models have still difficulties in reproducing the observations in this highly reddened Galactic regions.

Description: Asteroseismic constraints on K giants make it possible to infer radii, masses and ages of tens of thousands of field stars. Tests against independent estimates of these properties are however scarce, especially in the metal-poor regime. Here, we report the detection of solar-like oscillations in eight stars belonging to the red-giant branch (RGB) and red-horizontal branch (RHB) of the globular cluster M4. The detections were made in photometric observations from the K2 Mission during its Campaign 2. Making use of independent constraints on the distance, we estimate masses of the eight stars by utilizing different combinations of seismic and non-seismic inputs. When introducing a correction to the scaling relation as suggested by stellar models, for RGB stars we find excellent agreement with the expected masses from isochrone fitting, and with a distance modulus derived using independent methods. The offset with respect to independent masses is lower, or comparable with, the uncertainties on the average RGB mass (4–10 per cent, depending on the combination of constraints used). Our results lend confidence to asteroseismic masses in the metal-poor regime. We note that a larger sample will be needed to allow more stringent tests to be made of systematic uncertainties in all the observables (both seismic and non-seismic), and to explore the properties of RHB stars, and of different populations in the cluster.

Description: We present a detailed study of the internal kinematics of the Galactic globular cluster M 4 (NGC 6121), by deriving the radial velocities from 7250 spectra for 2771 stars distributed from the upper part of the red giant branch down to the main sequence. We describe new approaches to determine the wavelength solution from day-time calibrations and to determine the radial velocity drifts that can occur between calibration and science observations when observing with the GIRAFFE spectrograph at Very Large Telescope. Two techniques to determine the radial velocity are compared, after a qualitative description of their advantages with respect to other commonly used algorithm, and a new approach to remove the sky contribution from the spectra obtained with fibre-fed spectrograph and further improve the radial velocity precision is presented. The average radial velocity of the cluster is 〈 v 〉 = 71.08 ± 0.08 km s –1 with an average dispersion of $\mu _{v_{\rm c}} = 3.97$  km s –1 . Using the same data set and the same statistical approach of previous analyses, 20 additional binary candidates are found, for a total of 87 candidates. A new determination of the internal radial velocity dispersion as a function of cluster distance is presented, resulting in a dispersion of 4.5 km s –1 within 2 arcmin from the centre of cluster and steadily decreasing outward. We statistically confirm the small amplitude of the cluster rotation, as suggested in the past by several authors. This new analysis represents a significant improvement with respect to previous results in literature and provides a fundamental observational input for the modelling of the cluster dynamics.

Description: Most future surveys designed to discover transiting exoplanets, including TESS and PLATO , will target bright ( V 13) and nearby solar-type stars having a spectral type later than F5. In order to enhance the probability of identifying transits, these surveys must cover a very large area on the sky, because of the intrinsically low areal density of bright targets. Unfortunately, no existing catalogue of stellar parameters is both deep and wide enough to provide a homogeneous input list. As the first Gaia data release exploitable for this purpose is expected to be released not earlier than late 2017, we have devised an improved reduced-proper-motion (RPM) method to discriminate late field dwarfs and giants by combining the fourth U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC4) proper motions with AAVSO Photometric All-Sky Survey DR6 photometry, and relying on Radial Velocity Experiment DR4 as an external calibrator. The output, named UCAC4-RPM, is a publicly available, complete all-sky catalogue of solar-type dwarfs down to V ~= 13.5, plus an extension to log g 〉 3.0 subgiants. The relatively low amount of contamination (defined as the fraction of false positives; 〈30 per cent) also makes UCAC4-RPM a useful tool for the past and ongoing ground-based transit surveys, which need to discard candidate signals originating from early-type or giant stars. As an application, we show how UCAC4-RPM may support the preparation of the TESS (that will map almost the entire sky) input catalogue and the input catalogue of PLATO , planned to survey more than half of the whole sky with exquisite photometric precision.

Description: We present the results of a photometric search for variable stars in the core of the Galactic globular cluster Messier 4 (M 4). The input data are a large and unprecedented set of deep Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 images (large programme GO-12911; 120 orbits allocated), primarily aimed at probing binaries with massive companions by detecting their astrometric wobbles. Though these data were not optimized to carry out a time-resolved photometric survey, their exquisite precision, spatial resolution and dynamic range enabled us to firmly detect 38 variable stars, of which 20 were previously unpublished. They include 19 cluster-member eclipsing binaries (confirming the large binary fraction of M 4), RR Lyrae and objects with known X-ray counterparts. We improved and revised the parameters of some among published variables.

Description: We present the one-year long observing campaign of SN 2012A which exploded in the nearby (9.8 Mpc) irregular galaxy NGC 3239. The photometric evolution is that of a normal Type IIP supernova, but the plateau is shorter and the luminosity not as constant as in other supernovae of this type. The absolute maximum magnitude, with M B  = –16.23 ± 0.16 mag, is close to the average for SN IIP. Thanks also to the strong UV flux in the early phase, SN 2012A reached a peak luminosity of about 2  x 10 42 erg s –1 , which is brighter than those of other SNe with a similar 56 Ni mass. The latter was estimated from the luminosity in the exponential tail of the light curve and found to be M( 56 Ni) = 0.011 ± 0.004 M , which is intermediate between standard and faint SN IIP. The spectral evolution of SN 2012A is also typical of SN IIP, from the early spectra dominated by a blue continuum and very broad (~10 4 km s –1 ) Balmer lines, to the late-photospheric spectra characterized by prominent P-Cygni features of metal lines (Fe ii , Sc ii , Ba ii , Ti ii , Ca ii , Na i D). The photospheric velocity is moderately low, ~3  x 10 3 km s –1 at 50 d, for the low optical depth metal lines. The nebular spectrum obtained 394 d after the shock breakout shows the typical features of SNe IIP and the strength of the [O i ] doublet suggests a progenitor of intermediate mass, similar to SN 2004et (~15 M ). A candidate progenitor for SN 2012A has been identified in deep, pre-explosion K ' -band Gemini North Near-InfraRed Imager and Spectrometer images, and found to be consistent with a star with a bolometric magnitude –7.08 ± 0.36 (log L /L = 4.73 ± 0.14 dex). The magnitude of the recovered progenitor in archival images points towards a moderate-mass $10.5_{-2}^{+4.5}\,{\rm M}_{\odot }$ star as the precursor of SN 2012A. The explosion parameters and progenitor mass were also estimated by means of a hydrodynamical model, fitting the bolometric light curve, the velocity and the temperature evolution. We found a best fit for a kinetic energy of 0.48 foe, an initial radius of 1.8  x 10 13  cm and ejecta mass of 12.5 M . Even including the mass for the compact remnant, this appears fully consistent with the direct measurements given above.

Description: We report 12 new transit observations of the exoplanet WASP-4b from the Transit Monitoring in the South ( TraMoS ) project. These transits are combined with all previously published transit data for this planet to provide an improved radius measurement of R p = 1.395 ± 0.022 R jup and improved transit ephemerides. In a new homogeneous analysis in search for transit timing variations (TTVs) we find no evidence of those with rms amplitudes larger than 20 s over a 4-yr time span. This lack of TTVs rules out the presence of additional planets in the system with masses larger than about 2.5, 2.0 and 1.0 M around the 1:2, 5:3 and 2:1 orbital resonances. Our search for the variation of other parameters, such as orbital inclination and transit depth, also yields negative results over the total time span of the transit observations. Finally, we perform a simple study of stellar spots configurations of the system and conclude that the star rotational period is about 34 d.