Keywords

Microlensing can be used to discover exoplanets of a wide range of masses with orbits beyond ∼1 au, and even free-floating planets. The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission will use microlensing to discover approximately 1600 planets by monitoring ∼100 million stars to find ∼50,000 microlensing events. Modeling each microlensing event, especially the ones involving two or more lenses, is typically complicated and time consuming, and analyzing thousands of WFIRST microlensing events is possibly infeasible using current methods. Here, we present an algorithm that is able to rapidly evaluate thousands of simulated WFIRST binary-lens microlensing light curves, returning an estimate for the physical parameters of the lens systems. We find that this algorithm can recover projected separations between the planet and the star very well for low-mass-ratio events, and can also estimate mass ratios within an order of magnitude for events with wide and close caustic topologies.

The sensitivities of radial velocity (RV) surveys for exoplanet detection are extending to increasingly longer orbital periods, where companions with periods of several years are now being regularly discovered. Companions with orbital periods that exceed the duration of the survey manifest in the data as an incomplete orbit or linear trend, a feature that can either present as the sole detectable companion to the host star, or as an additional signal overlain on the signatures of previously discovered companion(s). A diagnostic that can confirm or constrain scenarios in which the trend is caused by an unseen stellar rather than planetary companion is the use of high-contrast imaging observations. Here, we present RV data from the Anglo-Australian Planet Search (AAPS) for 20 stars that show evidence of orbiting companions. Of these, six companions have resolved orbits, with three that lie in the planetary regime. Two of these (HD 92987b and HD 221420b) are new discoveries. Follow-up observations using the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI) on the Gemini South telescope revealed that 5 of the 20 monitored companions are likely stellar in nature. We use the sensitivity of the AAPS and DSSI data to place constraints on the mass of the companions for the remaining systems. Our analysis shows that a planetary-mass companion provides the most likely self-consistent explanation of the data for many of the remaining systems.

Currently, we have only limited means to probe the presence of planets at large orbital separations. Foreman-Mackey et al. searched for long-period transiting planets in the Kepler light curves using an automated pipeline. Here, we apply their pipeline, with minor modifications, to a larger sample and use updated stellar parameters from Gaia DR2. The latter boosts the stellar radii for most of the planet candidates found by FM16, invalidating a number of them as false positives. We identify 15 candidates, including two new ones. All have sizes from 0.3 to 1 R_J, and all but two have periods from 2 to 10 yr. We report two main findings based on this sample. First, the planet occurrence rate for the above size and period ranges is ${0.70}_{-0.20}^{+0.40}$ planets per Sun-like star, with the frequency of cold Jupiters agreeing with that from radial velocity surveys. Planet occurrence rises with decreasing planet size, roughly describable as ${dN}/d\mathrm{log}R\propto {R}^{\alpha }$ with $\alpha =-{1.6}_{-0.9}^{+1.0}$, i.e., Neptune-sized planets are some four times more common than Jupiter-sized ones. Second, five out of our 15 candidates orbit stars with known transiting planets at shorter periods, including one with five inner planets. We interpret this high incidence rate to mean: (1) almost all our candidates should be genuine; (2) across a large orbital range (from ∼0.05 to a few astronomical units), mutual inclinations in these systems are at most a few degrees; and (3) large outer planets exist almost exclusively in systems with small inner planets.

We report the detection of a hot Jupiter (${M}_{p}={1.75}_{-0.17}^{+0.14}\,{M}_{{\rm{J}}}$, R_p = 1.38 ± 0.04 R_J) orbiting a middle-aged star ($\mathrm{log}g={4.152}_{-0.043}^{+0.030}$) in the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) southern continuous viewing zone (β = −7959). We confirm the planetary nature of the candidate TOI-150.01 using radial velocity observations from the APOGEE-2 South spectrograph and the Carnegie Planet Finder Spectrograph, ground-based photometric observations from the robotic Three-hundred MilliMeter Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, and Gaia distance estimates. Large-scale spectroscopic surveys, such as APOGEE/APOGEE-2, now have sufficient radial velocity precision to directly confirm the signature of giant exoplanets, making such data sets valuable tools in the TESS era. Continual monitoring of TOI-150 by TESS can reveal additional planets and subsequent observations can provide insights into planetary system architectures involving a hot Jupiter around a star about halfway through its main-sequence life.

Observations of the Kepler-1625 system with Kepler and the Hubble Space Telescope have suggested the presence of a candidate exomoon, Kepler-1625b I, a Neptune-radius satellite orbiting a long-period Jovian planet. Here we present a new analysis of the Hubble observations, using an independent data reduction pipeline. We find that the transit light curve is well fit with a planet-only model, with a best-fit ${\chi }_{\nu }^{2}$ equal to 1.01. The addition of a moon does not significantly improve the fit quality. We compare our results directly with the original light curve from Teachey & Kipping, and find that we obtain a better fit to the data using a model with fewer free parameters (no moon). We discuss possible sources for the discrepancy in our results, and conclude that the lunar transit signal found by Teachey & Kipping was likely an artifact of the data reduction. This finding highlights the need to develop independent pipelines to confirm results that push the limits of measurement precision.

We examine the ability of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to detect and improve our understanding of planetary systems in the Kepler field. By modeling the expected transits of all confirmed and candidate planets detected by Kepler as expected to be observed by TESS, we provide a probabilistic forecast of the detection of each Kepler planet in TESS data. We find that TESS has a greater than 50% chance of detecting 260 of these planets at the 3σ level in one sector of observations and an additional 120 planets in two sectors. Most of these are large planets in short orbits around their host stars, although a small number of rocky planets are expected to be recovered. Most of these systems have only one known transiting planet; in only ∼5% of known multiply transiting systems do we anticipate more than one planet to be recovered. When these planets are recovered, we expect TESS to be a powerful tool to characterize transit timing variations. Using Kepler-88 (KOI-142) as an example, we show that TESS will improve measurements of planet–star mass ratios and orbital parameters, and significantly reduce the transit timing uncertainty in future years. Because TESS will be most sensitive to hot Jupiters, we research whether TESS will be able to detect tidal orbital decay in these systems. We find two confirmed planetary systems (Kepler-2 b and Kepler-13 b) and five candidate systems that will be good candidates to detect tidal decay.

Electron excitation collision strengths for a wide range of transitions giving rise to infrared, optical, ultraviolet, and extreme ultraviolet lines of S iii have been calculated using the B-spline Breit–Pauli R-matrix method. The term-dependent non-orthogonal orbitals have been employed for the accurate representation of target wave functions and the electron plus S iii target scattering system. The multiconfiguration Hartree–Fock method has been utilized for the calculation of 198 S iii fine-structure level energies belonging to the $3{s}^{2}3{p}^{2},3s3{p}^{3},3{p}^{4},3{s}^{2}3p3d$, $3{s}^{2}3p4s,4p,4d,4f,3{s}^{2}3p5s,5p,5d$, $3{s}^{2}3p6s,3s3{p}^{2}3d,3s3{p}^{2}4s,4p,4d,4f$, and 3s3p²5s configurations. The transition probabilities between fine-structure levels have also been calculated and compared with available other calculations. The close-coupling expansion includes these 198 fine-structure levels of S iii in the electron collision calculations. The effective collision strengths are calculated at electron temperatures in the range of 10³–10⁶ K for all possible transitions between the 198 fine-structure levels. The present calculation includes a larger number of levels in the close-coupling expansion and improved target description than previous calculations and should be useful for the analysis of measured spectra from various astrophysical objects. Comparison with other calculations is used to assess likely uncertainties in the existing collision and radiative rates for S iii. The collision and radiative rates are estimated to be accurate to about 20% or better for most main transitions of astrophysical importance.

Two studies utilizing sparse aperture-masking (SAM) interferometry and H_α differential imaging have reported multiple Jovian companions around the young solar-mass star, LkCa 15 (LkCa 15 bcd): the first claimed direct detection of infant, newly formed planets ("protoplanets"). We present new near-infrared direct imaging/spectroscopy from the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) system coupled with Coronagraphic High Angular Resolution Imaging Spectrograph (CHARIS) integral field spectrograph and multi-epoch thermal infrared imaging from Keck/NIRC2 of LkCa 15 at high Strehl ratios. These data provide the first direct imaging look at the same wavelengths and in the same locations where previous studies identified the LkCa 15 protoplanets, and thus offer the first decisive test of their existence. The data do not reveal these planets. Instead, we resolve extended emission tracing a dust disk with a brightness and location comparable to that claimed for LkCa 15 bcd. Forward-models attributing this signal to orbiting planets are inconsistent with the combined SCExAO/CHARIS and Keck/NIRC2 data. An inner disk provides a more compelling explanation for the SAM detections and perhaps also the claimed H_α detection of LkCa 15 b. We conclude that there is currently no clear, direct evidence for multiple protoplanets orbiting LkCa 15, although the system likely contains at least one unseen Jovian companion. To identify Jovian companions around LkCa 15 from future observations, the inner disk should be detected and its effect modeled, removed, and shown to be distinguishable from planets. Protoplanet candidates identified from similar systems should likewise be clearly distinguished from disk emission through modeling.

Using a global network of small telescopes, we have obtained light curves of Proxima Centauri at 329 observation epochs from 2006 to 2017. The planet Proxima b discovered by Anglada-Escudé et al. with an orbital period of 11.186 days has an a priori transit probability of ∼1.5%; if it transits, the predicted transit depth is about 5 mmag. In Blank et al., we analyzed 96 of our light curves that overlapped with predicted transit ephemerides from previously published tentative transit detections and found no evidence in our data that would corroborate claims of transits with a period of 11.186 days. Here we broaden our analysis, using 262 high-quality light curves from our data set to search for any periodic transit-like events over a range of periods from 1 to 30 days. We also inject a series of simulated planet transits and find that our data are sufficiently sensitive to have detected transits of 5 mmag depth, with recoverability ranging from ∼100% for an orbital period of 1 day to ∼20% for an orbital period of 20 days for the parameter spaces tested. Specifically, at the 11.186-day period and 5 mmag transit depth, we rule out transits in our data with high confidence. We are able to rule out virtually all transits of other planets at periods shorter than 5 days and depths greater than 3 mmag; however, we cannot confidently rule out transits at the period of Proxima b due to incomplete orbital phase coverage and a lack of sensitivity to transits shallower than 4 mmag.

In this paper we present three new extrasolar planets from the Qatar Exoplanet Survey. Qatar-8b is a hot Saturn, with M_P = 0.37 M_J and R_P = 1.3 R_J, orbiting a solar-like star every P_orb = 3.7 days. Qatar-9b is a hot Jupiter with a mass of M_P = 1.2 M_J and a radius of R_P = 1 R_J, in an orbit of P_orb = 1.5 days around a low mass, M_⋆ = 0.7 M_⊙, mid-K main-sequence star. Finally, Qatar-10b is a hot, T_eq ∼ 2000 K, sub-Jupiter mass planet, M_P = 0.7 M_J, with a radius of R_P = 1.54 R_J and an orbital period of P_orb = 1.6 days, placing it on the edge of the sub-Jupiter desert.