Search

Several planetary formation models have been proposed to explain the observed abundance and variety of compositions of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. In this context, multitransiting systems orbiting low-mass stars whose planets are close to the radius valley are benchmark systems, which help to elucidate which formation model dominates. We report the discovery, validation, and initial characterization of one such system, TOI-2096, composed of a super-Earth and a mini-Neptune hosted by a mid-type M dwarf located 48 pc away. We first characterized the host star by combining different methods. Then, we derived the planetary properties by modeling the photometric data from TESS and ground-based facilities. We used archival data, high-resolution imaging, and statistical validation to support our planetary interpretation. We found that TOI-2096 corresponds to a dwarf star of spectral type M4. It harbors a super-Earth (R$\sim1.2 R_{\oplus}$) and a mini-Neptune (R$\sim1.90 R_{\oplus}$) in likely slightly eccentric orbits with orbital periods of 3.12 d and 6.39 d, respectively. These orbital periods are close to the first-order 2:1 mean-motion resonance (MMR), which may lead to measurable transit timing variations (TTVs). We computed the expected TTVs amplitude for each planet and found that they might be measurable with high-precision photometry delivering mid-transit times with accuracies of $\lesssim$2 min. Moreover, measuring the planetary masses via radial velocities (RVs) is also possible. Lastly, we found that these planets are among the best in their class to conduct atmospheric studies using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The properties of this system make it a suitable candidate for further studies, particularly for mass determination using RVs and/or TTVs, decreasing the scarcity of systems that can be used to test planetary formation models around low-mass stars., 25 pages, 21 figures. Aceptted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

ARB, JPG, and RG acknowledge funding support from Spanish public funds for research from project ESP2017-87676-C5-5-R from the `Plan Estatal de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica y de Innovacion', from project PID2019-107061GB-C63 from the `Programas Estatales de Generacion de Conocimiento y Fortalecimiento Cientifico y Tecnologico del Sistema de I+D+i y de I+D + i Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad', and from the State Agency for Research through the `Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa' award to the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709), all from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. ARB also acknowledges funding support from project PRE2018084322 from the `Programa Estatal de Promocion del Talento y su Empleabilidad del Plan Estatal de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica y de Innovacion 2013-2016' of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. AGHacknowledges funding support from Spanish public funds for research under projects ESP2017-87676-2-2 the SpanishMinistry of Science and Education, and from `European Regional Development Fund/Junta de Andalucia-Consejeria de Economia y Conocimiento' under project E-FQM-041-UGR18 by Universidad de Granada. JCS acknowledges funding support from Spanish public funds for research under projects PID2019-107061GB-C63 and ESP201787676-2-2, and from project RYC-2012-09913 under the `Ramon y Cajal' program of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education., Detecting and understanding rotation in stellar interiors is nowadays one of the unsolved problems in stellar physics. Asteroseismology has been able to provide insights on rotation for the Sun, solar-like stars, and compact objects like white dwarfs. However, this is still very difficult for intermediate-mass stars. These stars are moderate-to-rapid rotators. Rotation splits and shifts the oscillation modes, which makes the oscillation spectrum more complex and harder to interpret. Here we study the oscillation patterns of a sample of benchmark delta Sct stars belonging to eclipsing binary systems with the objective of finding the frequency spacing related to the rotational splitting (delta r). For this task, we combine three techniques: the Fourier transform, the autocorrelation function, and the histogram of frequency differences. The last two showed a similar behaviour. For most of the stars, it was necessary to determine the large separation (Delta nu) prior to spot delta r. This is the first time we may clearly state that one of the periodicities present in the p modes oscillation spectra of delta Sct stars corresponds to the rotational splitting. This is true independent of the stellar rotation rate. These promising results pave the way to finding a robust methodology to determine rotational splittings from the oscillation spectra of delta Sct stars and, thus, understanding the rotational profile of intermediate-mass pulsating stars., Plan Estatal de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica y de Innovacion ESP2017-87676-C5-5-R, Programas Estatales de Generacion de Conocimiento y Fortalecimiento Cientifico y Tecnologico del Sistema de I+D+i y de I+D + i Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad PID2019-107061GB-C63, State Agency for Research through the `Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa' SEV-2017-0709, Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Programa Estatal de Promocion del Talento y su Empleabilidad del Plan Estatal de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica y de Innovacion 2013-2016' of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities PRE2018084322, Spanish Government ESP2017-87676-2-2, European Regional Development Fund/Junta de Andalucia-Consejeria de Economia y Conocimientoby Universidad de Granada E-FQM-041-UGR18, Spanish public funds for research PID2019-107061GB-C63 ESP201787676-2-2, Spanish Government RYC-2012-09913

Fractal fingerprints have been found recently in the light curves of several δ Scuti stars observed by Convection Rotation and planetary Transits(CoRoT) satellite. This sole fact might pose a problem for the detection of pulsation frequencies using classical pre-whitening techniques, but it is also a potentially rich source for information about physical mechanisms associated with stellar variability. Assuming that a light curve is composed of a superposition of oscillation modes with a fractal background noise, in this work we applied the Coarse Graining Spectral Analysis (CGSA), a fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based algorithm, which can discriminate in a time series the stochastic fractal power spectra from the harmonic one. We have found that the fractal background component is determining the frequency content extracted using classical pre-whitening techniques in the light curves of δ Scuti stars. This might be crucial to understand the amount of frequencies excited in these kinds of pulsating stars. Additionally, CGSA resulted to be relevant in order to extract the oscillation modes, this points to a new criterion to stop the pre-whitening cascade based on the percentage of fractal component in the residuals.

Open Access. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), This paper aims at being a provocative guide to the future of asteroseismology from the perspective of the analysis of time series, where the fundamentals of harmonic analysis are subjected to stress tests. In this context, we give an annotated summary of our research over the last decades on harmonic analysis of A-F stars. We discuss and explore the consequences of our findings, which may extend to any kind of pulsators. As well, we analyse the impact of this reconsideration on future asteroseismic studies, which would entail a paradigm shift. This includes a discussion on the presence of fractal behavior in delta Sct stars, and how this can be used to develop a stopping criterion of the pre-whitening process, as an alternative to SNR (or significance) criterion. Drilling a scientific paradigm has its natural resilience, hence the path described here is being arduous, although fruitful at the same time., SF, JP-G, JR, ML-M, and RG acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa award for the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709) and Spanish public funds for research under projects ESP2015-65712C5-5-R. JS and AG acknowledge funding support from Spanish public funds for research under projects ESP2017-87676-C5-2R. JS also acknowledges funding support from project RYC2012-09913 under the Ramon y Cajal program of the Spanish MINECO. AG acknowledges support from Universidad de Granada under project E-FQM-041-UGR18 from the Programa Operativo FEDER 2014-2020 programme by Junta de Andalucia regional Government.

Context. Planets orbiting low-mass stars such as M dwarfs are now considered a cornerstone in the search for life-harbouring planets. GJ 273 is a planetary system orbiting an M dwarf only 3.75 pc away, composed of two confirmed planets, GJ 273b and GJ 273c, and two promising candidates, GJ 273d and GJ 273e. Planet GJ 273b resides in the habitable zone. Currently, due to a lack of observed planetary transits, only the minimum masses of the planets are known: Mb sin ib=2.89 M⊕, Mc sin ic=1.18 M⊕, Md sin id=10.80 M⊕, and Me sin ie=9.30 M⊕. Despite being an interesting system, the GJ 273 planetary system is still poorly studied. Aims. We aim at precisely determine the physical parameters of the individual planets, in particular to break the mass–inclination degeneracy to accurately determine the mass of the planets. Moreover, we present thorough characterisation of planet GJ 273b in terms of its potential habitability. Methods. First, we explored the planetary formation and hydration phases of GJ 273 during the first 100 Myr. Secondly, we analysed the stability of the system by considering both the two- and four-planet configurations. We then performed a comparative analysis between GJ 273 and the Solar System, and searched for regions in GJ 273 which may harbour minor bodies in stable orbits, i.e. main asteroid belt and Kuiper belt analogues. Results. From our set of dynamical studies, we obtain that the four-planet configuration of the system allows us to break the mass– inclination degeneracy. From our modelling results, the masses of the planets are unveiled as: 2:89 ≤ Mb ≤ 3:03 M⊕, 1:18 ≤ Mc ≤ 1:24 M⊕, 10:80 ≤ Md ≤ 11:35 M⊕ and 9:30 ≤ Me ≤ 9:70 M⊕. These results point to a system likely composed of an Earth-mass planet, a super-Earth and two mini-Neptunes. From planetary formation models, we determine that GJ 273b was likely an efficient water captor while GJ 273c is probably a dry planet. We found that the system may have several stable regions where minor bodies might reside. Collectively, these results are used to comprehensively discuss the habitability of GJ 273b, Spanish Ministry of Science and Education Ramón y Cajal programme ESP2017-87676-2-2 RYC-2012-09913, CONICYT- FONDECYT/Chile Postdoctorado 3180405, MIT’s Kavli Institute

Context. It is known that the observed distribution of frequencies in CoRoT and Kepler δ Scuti stars has no parallelism with any theoretical model. Pre-whitening is a widespread technique in the analysis of time series with gaps from pulsating stars located in the classical instability strip, such as δ Scuti stars. However, some studies have pointed out that this technique might introduce biases in the results of the frequency analysis. Aims. This work aims at studying the biases that can result from pre-whitening in asteroseismology. The results will depend on the intrinsic range and distribution of frequencies of the stars. The periodic nature of the gaps in CoRoT observations, only in the range of the pulsational frequency content of the δ Scuti stars, is shown to be crucial to determining their oscillation frequencies, the first step in performing asteroseismology of these objects. Hence, here we focus on the impact of pre-whitening on the asteroseismic characterization of δ Scuti stars. Methods. We select a sample of 15 δ Scuti stars observed by the CoRoT satellite, for which ultra-high-quality photometric data have been obtained by its seismic channel. In order to study the impact on the asteroseismic characterization of δ Scuti stars we perform the pre-whitening procedure on three datasets: gapped data, linearly interpolated data, and data with gaps interpolated using Autoregressive and Moving Average models (ARMA). Results. The different results obtained show that at least in some cases pre-whitening is not an efficient procedure for the deconvolution of the spectral window. Therefore, in order to reduce the effect of the spectral window to a minimum, in addition to performing a pre-whitening of the data, it is necessary to interpolate with an algorithm that is aimed to preserve the original frequency content.© ESO 2018., JPG acknowledge support from the “Junta de Andalucía” local government under project 2012-P12-TIC-2469. JCS and AGH acknowledge funding support from Spanish public funds for research under project ESP2015-65712-C5-5-R (MINECO/FEDER), and from project RYC-2012-09913 under the “Ramón y Cajal” programme of the Spanish MINECO. JCS also acknowledge support by the European FP7 project “SPACEINN” (FP7-SPACE-2011-1). AM acknowledges support by the Spanish MINECO National Space Program through project ESP2015-65712-C5-1-R and “Ramon y Cajal” program RYC-2012-09913. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 749962.

We study the theoretical properties of the regular spacings found in the oscillation spectra of δ Scuti stars. A linear relation between the large separation and the mean density is predicted to be found in the low-frequency domain (i.e. radial orders spanning from 1 to 8, approximately) of the main-sequence δ Scuti stars' oscillation spectrum. This implies an independent direct measure of the average density of δ Scuti stars, analogous to that of the Sun, and places tight constraints on the mode identification and hence on the stellar internal structure and dynamics, and allows a determination the radii of planets orbiting around δ Scuti stars with unprecedented precision. This opens the way for studying the evolution of regular patterns in pulsating stars, and its relation to stellar structure and evolution.

We aim at studying the theoretical properties of the regular spacings found in the oscillation spectra of delta Scuti stars. We performed a multi-variable analysis covering a wide range of stellar structure and seismic properties and model parameters representative of intermediate-mass, main sequence stars. The work-flow is entirely done using a new Virtual Observatory tool: TOUCAN (the VO gateway for asteroseismic models), which is presented in this paper. A linear relation between the large separation and the mean density is predicted to be found in the low frequency frequency domain (i.e. radial orders spanning from 1 to 8, approximately) of the main-sequence, delta Scuti stars' oscillation spectrum. We found that such a linear behavior stands whatever the mass, metallicity, mixing length, and overshooting parameters considered in this work. The intrinsic error of the method is discussed. This includes the uncertainty in the large separation determination and the role of rotation. The validity of the relation found is only guaranteed for stars rotating up to 40 percent of their break-up velocity. Finally, we applied the diagnostic method presented in this work to five stars for which regular patterns have been found. Our estimates for the mean density and the frequency of the fundamental radial mode match with those given in the literature within a 20 percent of deviation. Asteroseismology has thus revealed an independent direct measure of the average density of delta Scuti stars, analogous to that of the Sun. This places tight constraints on the mode identification and hence on the stellar internal structure and dynamics, and allows a determination the radius of planets orbiting around delta Scuti stars with unprecedented precision. This opens the way for studying the evolution of regular patterns in pulsating stars, and its relation with stellar structure and evolution., 11 pages, 6 figures, A&A in press

The processing of data obtained by the XMM–Newton observatory of the European Space Agency (ESA) is done using the SAS (Software Analysis System) tools provided by the ESA XMM Science Operations Centre (SOC). In order to be operative, these tools must be downloaded from the official SOC web pages and then installed (eventually upgraded) and run locally in the computer used by the data analyser. This process can be in some cases cumbersome for some users and local resources. In this presentation, we summarise the initiative developed from the SOC at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in collaboration with the Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria (IFCA CSIC-UC), to run these tools in a GRID environment, and thus taking advantage of the resources distribution and the possibility of remote use of the analysis tools.

The aim of this work was to use a multi-approach technique to derive the most accurate values possible of the physical parameters of the \delta Sct star HD174966. In addition, we searched for a periodic pattern in the frequency spectra with the goal of using it to determine the mean density of the star. First, we extracted the frequency content from the CoRoT light curve. Then, we derived the physical parameters of HD174966 and carried a mode identification out from the spectroscopic and photometric observations. We used this information to look for the models fulfilling all the conditions and discussed the inaccuracies of the method because of the rotation effects. In a final step, we searched for patterns in the frequency set using a Fourier transform, discussed its origin and studied the possibility of using the periodicity to obtain information about the physical parameters of the star. A total of 185 peaks were obtained from the Fourier analysis of the CoRoT light curve, being almost all reliable pulsating frequencies. From the spectroscopic observations, 18 oscillation modes were detected and identified, and the inclination angle ($62.5^{\circ}$$^{+7.5}_{-17.5}$) and the rotational velocity of the star (142 km/s) were estimated. From the multi-colour photometric observations, 3 frequencies were detected, which correspond to the main ones in the CoRoT light curve. We looked for periodicities within the 185 frequencies and found a periodic pattern ~64 \mu Hz. Using the inclination angle, the rotational velocity and an Echelle diagram, showing a double comb outside the asymptotic regime, we concluded that the periodicity corresponds to a large separation structure. The periodic pattern allowed us to discriminate models from a grid, finding that the value of the mean density is achieved with a 6% uncertainty. So, the pattern could be used as a new observable for A-F type stars., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, 6 tables