We present the photometric analysis of 4 transits of the exoplanet WASP-4b, obtained with the Baade 6.5m telescope, one of the two Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas. The light curves have a photometric precision of 0.5 mmag and a time sampling of 30s. This high precision has allowed us to detect several “spot anomalies”: temporary brightenings due to the occultation of a starspot on the transit chord. By analyzing these anomalies we find the sky-projected stellar obliquity to be λ = 1°+12°−14°. The small value suggests that the planet migration mechanism preserved the initially low obliquity, or that tidal evolution has realigned the system.

The eccentric orbits of the known extrasolar giant planets provide evidence that most planet-forming environments undergo violent dynamical instabilities. Here, we numerically simulate the impact of giant planet instabilities on planetary systems as a whole. We find that populations of inner rocky and outer icy bodies are both shaped by the giant planet dynamics and are naturally correlated. Strong instabilities – those with very eccentric surviving giant planets – completely clear out their inner and outer regions. In contrast, systems with stable or low-mass giant planets form terrestrial planets in their inner regions and outer icy bodies produce dust that is observable as debris disks at mid-infrared wavelengths. Fifteen to twenty percent of old stars are observed to have bright debris disks (at λ ~ 70μm) and we predict that these signpost dynamically calm environments that should contain terrestrial planets.

The Wide Angle Search for Planet (WASP) project is one of the leading projects in the discovery of transiting exoplanets. We present 1) the current status of the WASP-North survey, 2) our recent exoplanet discoveries, and 3) we exemplify how these results fit into our understanding of transiting exoplanet properties and how they can help to understand exoplanet diversity.

We analyze the statistics of Doppler-detected planets and Keplere-detected planet candidates of high integrity. We determine the number of planets per star as a function of planet mass, radius, and orbital period, and the occurrence of planets as a function of stellar mass. We consider only orbital periods less than 50 days around Solar-type (GK) stars, for which both Doppler and Kepler offer good completeness. We account for observational detection effects to determine the actual number of planets per star. From Doppler-detected planets discovered in a survey of 166 nearby G and K main sequence stars we find a planet occurrence of 15+5−4% for planets with M sin i = 3–30 ME and P < 50 d, as described in Howard et al. (2010). From Keplere, the planet occurrence is 0.130 ± 0.008, 0.023 ± 0.003, and 0.013 ± 0.002 planets per star for planets with radii 2–4, 4–8, and 8–32 RE, consistent with Doppler-detected planets. From Keplere, the number of planets per star as a function of planet radius is given by a power law, df/dlog R = kRRα with kR = 2.9+0.5−0.4, α = −1.92 ± 0.11, and R = RP/RE. Neither the Doppler-detected planets nor the Keplere-detected planets exhibit a “desert” at super-Earth and Neptune sizes for close-in orbits, as suggested by some planet population synthesis models. The distribution of planets with orbital period, P, shows a gentle increase in occurrence with orbital period in the range 2–50 d. The occurrence of small, 2–4 RE planets increases with decreasing stellar mass, with seven times more planets around low mass dwarfs (3600–4100 K) than around massive stars (6600–7100 K).

We investigate the tidal interactions between hot Jupiter extra-solar planets and their host stars in an effort to characterise the effects of such interactions on stellar rotation. We study the WASP-18 and WASP-19 systems, showing that in both cases tidal interactions cause the eventual spiral in of the the planet towards the Roche limit. We find that for both systems this process will cause significant spin up of the host star, independent of the precise value for the tidal quality factors. By fitting tidal evolution models to observed parameters, we are able to determine that WASP-19 b is currently spiralling in, and that it has a very short remaining lifetime ~ 3 Myr.

We will present our campaign to estimate the projected spin-orbit angle for transiting hot Jupiters, obtained via observations of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect. Combining our results to those of other teams we show what the current distribution in projected spin-orbit angle is, quickly reminding what interpretation we make of it. Finally we will show early results from a campaign that we initiated, surveying the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect on transiting SB1 intended to provide a comparison sample to the transiting planet's results.

The determination of the stellar parameters of M dwarfs is of prime importance in the fields of galactic, stellar and planetary astronomy. M stars are the least studied galactic component regarding their fundamental parameters. Yet, they are the most numerous stars in the galaxy and contribute to most of its total (baryonic) mass. In particular, we are interested in their metallicity in order to study the star-planet connection and to refine the planetary parameters. As a preliminary result we present a test of the metallicity calibrations of Bonfils et al. (2005), Johnson & Apps (2009), and Schlaufman & Laughlin (2010) using a new sample of 17 binaries with precise V band photometry.

We investigate the coupling between solids and gas during the formation of gas giant planets by disk fragmentation in the outer regions of massive disks. We find that fragments can become differentiated at birth. Even if an entire clump does not survive, differentiation could create solids cores that survive to accrete gaseous envelopes later.

Theories of planet formation predict the birth of giant planets in the inner, dense, and gas-rich regions of the circumstellar disks around young stars. These are the regions from which strong CO emission is expected. Observations have so far been unable to confirm the presence of planets caught in formation. We have developed a novel method to detect a giant planet still embedded in a circumstellar disk by the distortions of the CO molecular line profiles emerging from the protoplanetary disk's surface. The method is based on the fact that a giant planet significantly perturbs the gas velocity flow in addition to distorting the disk surface density. We have calculated the emerging molecular line profiles by combining hydrodynamical models with semianalytic radiative transfer calculations. Our results have shown that a giant Jupiter-like planet can be detected using contemporary or future high-resolution near-IR spectrographs such as VLT/CRIRES or ELT/METIS. We have also studied the effects of binarity on disk perturbations. The most interesting results have been found for eccentric circumprimary disks in mid-separation binaries, for which the disk eccentricity - detectable from the asymmetric line profiles - arises from the gravitational effects of the companion star. Our detailed simulations shed new light on how to constrain the disk kinematical state as well as its eccentricity profile. Recent findings by independent groups have shown that core-accretion is severely affected by disk eccentricity, hence detection of an eccentric protoplanetary disk in a young binary system would further constrain planet formation theories.

The present study takes the CoRoT-7b exoplanet as an analogue for massive terrestrial planets to investigate conditions, under which intrinsic magnetic fields could be sustained in liquid cores. We examine the effect of depth-dependent transport parameters (e.g., activation volume of mantle rock) on a planet's thermal structure and the related heat flux across the core mantle boundary. For terrestrial planets more massive than the Earth, our calculations suggest that a substantial part of the lowermost mantle is in a sluggish convective regime, primarily due to pressure effects on viscosity. Hence, we find substantially higher core temperatures than previously reported from parameterized convection models. We also discuss the effect of melting point depression in the presence of impurities (e.g., sulfur) in iron-rich cores and compare corresponding melting relations to the calculated thermal structure. Since impurity effects become less important at the elevated pressure and temperature conditions prevalent in the deep interior of CoRoT-7b, iron-rich cores are likely solid, implying that a self-sustained magnetic field would be absent.

Hot-Jupiters are a common sub-class of exoplanets, which are enough close to the star to undergo tidal dissipation. The continuous action of tides modify the rotation of the planets until an equilibrium situation is reached. It is often assumed that synchronous motion is the most probable outcome of tidal evolution, since synchronous rotation is observed for the majority of the satellites in the Solar System. This is true for circular orbits, but when the orbits are eccentric, tidal effects are stronger when the planets are closer to the star, and therefore, the rotation rate tends to equalize the orbital speed rate at the pericenter (which is faster than synchronous rotation). An additional complication arises if the eccentricity is not constant and undergoes periodic perturbations from an external companion. Here we obtain an expression for the equilibrium rotation of Hot-Jupiters undergoing tidal dissipation and planetary perturbations. We show that for these planets, the equilibrium rotation rate is faster than for non-perturbed eccentric orbits.

Every ten years the astronomy and astrophysics community in the United States undertakes a survey intended to prioritize plans for major ground- and space-based astronomical facilities for the coming decade. New Worlds, New Horizons (NWNH) was released in August 2010 and represents the community's advice to the United States' funding agencies about the top priorities for 2010-2020. Here we focus on the recommendations of NWNH for space-based exoplanet missions to be considered by NASA, and on the plans developed to date for how NASA will respond to the science goals and missions set out for them by NWNH.

We present 3D global non-ideal MHD simulations with a self consistent dynamic evolution of ionization fraction of the gas as result of reduced chemical network. We include X-ray ionization from the star as well as cosmic ray ionization. Based on local gas density and temperature in our chemical network, we determine the magnetic resistivity, which is fed back in MHD simulations. Parameters for dust size and abundance are chosen to have accreting layers and a laminar “dead” mid-plane.

We present preliminary results of the radial velocity survey on going at TNG targeting binaries with similar components.

Hot-Jupiters are known to be dark in visible bandpasses, mainly because of the alkali metal absorption lines and TiO and VO molecular absorption bands. The outstanding quality of the Kepler mission photometry allows a detection (or non-detection upper limits on) giant planet secondary eclipses at visible wavelengths. We present such measurements on published planets from Kepler Q1 data. We then explore how to disentangle between the planetary thermal emission and the reflected light components that can both contribute to the detected signal in the Kepler bandpass. We finally mention how different physical processes can lead to a wide variety of hot-Jupiters albedos.

Overdensity of dust with respect to the gas in the planet forming regions is a crucial prerequisite to form larger bodies and eventually planets. We use a state-of-the-art code to simulate dust evolution processes in gas-rich circumstellar discs, including the viscous gas evolution. We find significant deviations of the radial distribution of dust from that of the gas as early as 1-2Myr. These deviations are closely related to the efficiency of grain growth. Apparent discrepancies between dust and gas distributions are suggested by the current millimetre interferometer observations, and ALMA will allow us tointerpret any such discrepancies in the context of dust evolution.

In order to understand general planet characteristics and constrain formation models it is necessary to scan over the widest possible parameter range of discovered systems. Due to detection biases, the domain of very-low mass planets had remained poorly explored. Only with improving measurement precision it has been possible to enter in the sub-Neptune mass range. The HARPS planet search program has been particularly efficient in detecting such ice giants and super earths. The present talk will summarize the obtained results and the characteristics of the low-mass population of exoplanets.

We present new results in modeling the interiors of Giant Planets (GP) and Brown Dwarfs (BD). In general models of the interior rely on equation of state data for planetary materials which have considerable uncertainties in the high-pressure domain. Our calculations are based on ab initio equation of state (EOS) data for hydrogen, helium, hydrogen-helium mixtures and water as the representative of all heavier elements or ices using finite-temperature density functional theory molecular dynamics (FT-DFT-MD) simulations. We compare results for the BD Gliese 229B calculated with Saumon-Chabrier-Van Horn EOS (SCVH95) and our EOS data.

We investigate the motion of a two-planet coplanar system under the combined effects of mutual interaction and tidal dissipation. The secular behavior of the system is analyzed using two different approaches, restricting to the case of a more massive outer planet. First, we solve the exact equations of motion through the numerical simulation of the system evolution. We also compute the stationary solutions of the mean equations of motion based on a Hamiltonian formalism. An application to the real system CoRoT-7 is investigated.

Four new transit light curves of XO-2b obtained in 2008 and 2009, are analyzed by using MCMC algorithm, and the system parameters are derived. The result demonstrates that the orbital period of the system obtained from new observations is almost the same as Burke et al.'s one (2007), which does not confirm the result of Fernandez et al. (2009).