Start year
2013
Organizational Unit
Organizing institutions
Grants related:
General
Description
The search for life in the universe has been driven by recent discoveries of planets around other stars (known as exoplanets), becoming one of the most active fields in modern astrophysics. The growing number of new exoplanets discovered in recent years and the recent advance on the study of their atmospheres are not only providing new valuable information about its physical properties, but also allowing to constrain the properties of the Solar system's planets within a more global context. The field is approaching to the important discovery of the first potentially habitable planets and encouraging more detailed studies of them. With the launching of upcoming related satellites like JWST, CHEOPS, TESS, ARIEL and PLATO, the exoplanets field faces a bright future.
It is for this reason that this field is aid of, and at the same time promotes, the development of increasingly sensitive and stable instrumentation for both, ground-based telescopes and space missions. Our group is particularly prepared for these two fronts. On the one hand, during the last years we have developed observational and reduction techniques of exoplanet transits data for the ORM telescopes, ours being one of the most productive groups in the exploitation of GTC. On the other hand, all ESA space missions (present and future) related to exoplanets have one or more components of the project as CoIs. Within the frame of this project, we intend that IAC researchers maintain an advantageous position regarding the operation of OSIRIS and CanariCam, first light
GTC's instruments, and participate in the construction, commissioning and operation of new instruments such as the high resolution optical spectrograph HORUS at GTC. The exploitation of the photometry and spectroscopy of transits with LIRIS at WHT is also one of our principal interests, especially in preparation for the installation in 2015 of EMIR on the GTC .
To summarize, the project "Exoplanets and Astrobiology" will focus on these four action lines:
1) The characterization of atmospheric and physical properties of exoplanets (GTC, WHT, ARIEL, HARPSN, CARMENES, ESPRESSO, etc. ..)
2) The search and confirmation of exoplanets by transits techniques (CoRoT, Kepler, K2, CHEOPS, XO, LCOGT, W FC, DISH, etc. ..)
3) The search and confirmation of exoplanet by radial velocity techniques (HARPSN, HORUS, LCOGT, SONG, CARMENES)
4) Astrobiology
Members
Principal investigator
Enric
Pallé Bago
Project staff
Hans Jörg
Deeg Deeg
Nicolas Cédric
Lodieu
Javier Andrés
Licandro Goldaracena
Víctor Javier
Sánchez Bejar
Juan Antonio
Belmonte Avilés
Roi
Alonso Sobrino
Grzegorz
Nowak
Patricia
Chinchilla Gallego
A. L. Cabrera Lavers
Felipe Andrés
Murgas Alcaino
Hannu
Parviainen
Collaborators
Dr.
Paulo Miles Paez
Dr.
Maria Rosa Zapatero Osorio
Dr.
M. Mas Hesse
Dr.
M. Deleuil
Dr.
D. Gandolfi
Dr.
M. Fridlund
Dr.
L. Doyle
Dr.
H. Rauer
Dr.
J. Cabrera
Dr.
Sz. Csizmadia
Dr.
D. Pollacco
Dr.
A. Hatzes
Dr.
T. Mazeh
Dr.
T. Boyajian
Dr.
B. Tingley
Dr.
D. Martin
Dr.
A Triaud
Dr.
D. Fabrycky
Antonio Cabrera Lavers
Results
- Detection of He in the atmosphere of an exoplanet from the ground, published in Science
- Detection of a super-earth around Barnard star, published in Nature
- Detection of the first TESS planets, with several papers of high relevance
- Discovery of Na and Halpha features in the spectrum of KELT-20b with TNG
- Publication of the Handbook of Exoplanets, the most extensive work of reference in the field of exoplanets. The Handbook was edited by members of our group, and includes contributions by about 300 experts worldwide, including 12 members of IAC.
Scientific activity
Related publications
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Optical phase curve of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-121bWe present the analysis of TESS optical photometry of WASP-121b, which reveals the phase curve of this transiting ultra-hot Jupiter. Its hotspot is located at the sub-stellar point, showing inefficient heat transport from the dayside (2870 ± 50 K) to the nightside (<2500 K at 3σ) at the altitudes probed by TESS. The TESS eclipse depth, measured atBourrier, V. et al.
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52020 -
Two Transiting Hot Jupiters from the WASP Survey: WASP-150b and WASP-176bWe report the discovery of two transiting exoplanets from the WASP survey, WASP-150b and WASP-176b. WASP-150b is an eccentric (e = 0.38) hot Jupiter on a 5.6 day orbit around a V = 12.03, F8 main-sequence host. The host star has a mass and radius of 1.4 ${M}_{\odot }$ and 1.7 ${R}_{\odot }$ respectively. WASP-150b has a mass and radius of 8.5 ${M}_Cooke, Benjamin F. et al.
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62020 -
Doppler tomographic measurement of the nodal precession of WASP-33bWASP-33b is a retrograde hot Jupiter with a period of 1.2 d orbiting a rapidly rotating and pulsating A-type star. A previous study found that the transit chord of WASP-33b had changed slightly from 2008 to 2014 based on Doppler tomographic measurements. They attributed the change to orbital precession caused by the non-zero oblateness of the hostWatanabe, Noriharu et al.
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42020 -
The TESS-Keck Survey. I. A Warm Sub-Saturn-mass Planet and a Caution about Stray Light in TESS CamerasWe report the detection of a Saturn-size exoplanet orbiting HD 332231 (TOI 1456) in light curves from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). HD 332231 -- an F8 dwarf star with a V-band magnitude of 8.56 -- was observed by TESS in Sectors 14 and 15. We detect a single-transit event in the Sector 15 presearch data conditioning (PDC) lightDalba, Paul A. et al.
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52020 -
The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs. Radial velocities and activity indicators from cross-correlation functions with weighted binary masksContext. For years, the standard procedure to measure radial velocities (RVs) of spectral observations consisted in cross-correlating the spectra with a binary mask, that is, a simple stellar template that contains information on the position and strength of stellar absorption lines. The cross-correlation function (CCF) profiles also provideLafarga, M. et al.
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42020 -
Nightside condensation of iron in an ultrahot giant exoplanetUltrahot giant exoplanets receive thousands of times Earth's insolation 1,2. Their high-temperature atmospheres (greater than 2,000 kelvin) are ideal laboratories for studying extreme planetary climates and chemistry 3-5. Daysides are predicted to be cloud-free, dominated by atomic species 6 and much hotter than nightsides 5,7,8. Atoms are expectedEhrenreich, David et al.
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32020 -
Three planets transiting the evolved star EPIC 249893012: a hot 8.8-M<SUB>⊕</SUB> super-Earth and two warm 14.7 and 10.2-M<SUB>⊕</SUB> sub-NeptunesWe report the discovery of a new planetary system with three transiting planets, one super-Earth and two sub-Neptunes, that orbit EPIC 249893012, a G8 IV-V evolved star (M ⋆ = 1.05 ± 0.05 M ☉, R ⋆ = 1.71 ± 0.04 R ☉, T eff = 5430 ± 85 K). The star is just leaving the main sequence. We combined K2 photometry with IRCS adaptive-optics imaging andHidalgo, D. et al.
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42020 -
TOI-503: The First Known Brown-dwarf Am-star Binary from the TESS MissionWe report the discovery of an intermediate-mass transiting brown dwarf (BD), TOI-503b, from the TESS mission. TOI-503b is the first BD discovered by TESS, and it has circular orbit around a metallic-line A-type star with a period of P = 3.6772 ± 0.0001 days. The light curve from TESS indicates that TOI-503b transits its host star in a grazingŠubjak, Ján et al.
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42020 -
Modelling the He I triplet absorption at 10 830 Å in the atmosphere of HD 209458 bContext. HD 209458 b is an exoplanet with an upper atmosphere undergoing blow-off escape that has mainly been studied using measurements of the Lyα absorption. Recently, high-resolution measurements of absorption in the He I triplet line at 10 830 Å of several exoplanets (including HD 209458 b) have been reported, creating a new opportunity toLampón, M. et al.
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42020 -
Is there Na I in the atmosphere of HD 209458b?. Effect of the centre-to-limb variation and Rossiter-McLaughlin effect in transmission spectroscopy studiesHD 209458b was the first transiting planet discovered, and the first for which an atmosphere, in particular Na I, was detected. With time, it has become one of the most frequently studied planets, with a large diversity of atmospheric studies using low- and high-resolution spectroscopy. Here, we present transit spectroscopy observations of HDCasasayas-Barris, N. et al.
Advertised on:
32020 -
Hot Exoplanet Atmospheres Resolved with Transit Spectroscopy (HEARTS). III. Atmospheric structure of the misaligned ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-121bUltra-hot Jupiters offer interesting prospects for expanding our theories on dynamical evolution and the properties of extremely irradiated atmospheres. In this context, we present the analysis of new optical spectroscopy for the transiting ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-121b. We first refine the orbital properties of WASP-121b, which is on a nearly polarBourrier, V. et al.
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32020 -
Can we detect the stellar differential rotation of WASP-7 through the Rossiter-McLaughlin observations?The Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect is the radial velocity signal generated when an object transits a rotating star. Stars rotate differentially and this affects the shape and amplitude of this signal, on a level that can no longer be ignored with precise spectrographs. Highly misaligned planets provide a unique opportunity to probe stellarSerrano, L. M. et al.
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32020 -
Detection of Na, K, and Hα absorption in the atmosphere of WASP-52b using ESPRESSOWASP-52b is a low-density hot Jupiter orbiting a moderately active K2V star. Previous low-resolution studies have revealed a cloudy atmosphere and found atomic Na above the cloud deck. Here we report on the detection of excess absorption at the Na doublet, the Hα line, and the K D 1 line. We derived a high-resolution transmission spectrum based onChen, G. et al.
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32020 -
Stellar activity consequence on the retrieved transmission spectra through chromatic Rossiter-McLaughlin observationsMostly multiband photometric transit observations have been used so far to retrieve broadband transmission spectra of transiting exoplanets in order to study their atmosphere. An alternative method has been proposed and has only been used once to recover transmission spectra using chromatic Rossiter-McLaughlin observations. Stellar activity hasBoldt, S. et al.
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32020 -
LHS 1815b: The First Thick-disk Planet Detected by TESSWe report the first discovery of a thick-disk planet, LHS 1815b (TOI-704b, TIC 260004324), detected in the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) survey. LHS 1815b transits a bright (V = 12.19 mag, K = 7.99 mag) and quiet M dwarf located 29.87 ± 0.02 pc away with a mass of 0.502 ± 0.015 M ☉ and a radius of 0.501 ± 0.030 R ☉. We validate theGan, Tianjun et al.
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42020 -
TESS Spots a Hot Jupiter with an Inner Transiting NeptuneHot Jupiters are rarely accompanied by other planets within a factor of a few in orbital distance. Previously, only two such systems have been found. Here, we report the discovery of a third system using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The host star, TOI-1130, is an eleventh magnitude K-dwarf in Gaia G-band. It has twoHuang, Chelsea X. et al.
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32020 -
RedDots: a temperate 1.5 Earth-mass planet candidate in a compact multiterrestrial planet system around GJ 1061Small low-mass stars are favourable targets for the detection of rocky habitable planets. In particular, planetary systems in the solar neighbourhood are interesting and suitable for precise characterization. The RedDots campaigns seek to discover rocky planets orbiting nearby low-mass stars. The 2018 campaign targeted GJ 1061, which is the 20thDreizler, S. et al.
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32020 -
The Continuing Search for Evidence of Tidal Orbital Decay of Hot JupitersMany of the known hot Jupiters are formally unstable to tidal orbital decay. The only hot Jupiter for which orbital decay has been directly detected is WASP-12, for which transit-timing measurements spanning more than a decade have revealed that the orbital period is decreasing at a rate of dP/dt ≈ 10^{-9}, corresponding to a reduced tidal qualityPatra, Kishore C. et al.
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42020 -
Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission. XXIX. The hot Jupiters CoRoT-30 b and CoRoT-31 bAims: We report the discovery as well as the orbital and physical characterizations of two new transiting giant exoplanets, CoRoT-30 b and CoRoT-31 b, with the CoRoT space telescope. Methods: We analyzed two complementary data sets: photometric transit light curves measured by CoRoT, and radial velocity curves measured by the HARPS spectrometer. ToBordé, P. et al.
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32020 -
TOI-132 b: A short-period planet in the Neptune desert transiting a V = 11.3 G-type star<SUP>★</SUP>The Neptune desert is a feature seen in the radius-period plane, whereby a notable dearth of short period, Neptune-like planets is found. Here, we report the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) discovery of a new short-period planet in the Neptune desert, orbiting the G-type dwarf TYC 8003-1117-1 (TOI-132). TESS photometry shows transitDíaz, Matías R. et al.
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32020
