Found 132 talks archived in Stars

At the end of 2008, on ideas of teams from the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur (OCA) and IAC, the CoRoT satellite observed the star HD 46375, known to host a non-transiting Saturn-mass exoplanet with a 3.023 day period. HD 46375 is the brightest star with a known close-in planet in the CoRoT accessible field of view. As such, it was targeted by the CoRoT additional program and observed in a CCD normally dedicated to the asteroseismology program, to obtain an ultra-precise photometric lightcurve and detect or place upper limits on the brightness of the planet. In addition, a ground-based support was simultaneously performed with the high-resolution NARVAL spectro-polarimeter to constrain the stellar atmospheric and magnetic properties. In this seminar, I will present the main results, in particular the stellar constrain we obtained thanks to the detection of the oscillation mode signature and the plausible detection of the planetary signal, which, if confirmed with future observations, would be the first detection of phase changes in the visible for a non-transiting planet.

The proper characterization of the least massive population of the young Sigma Orionis star cluster is required to understand the form of the cluster mass function and its impact on our comprehension of the substellar formation processes. SOri70 (T5.5±1) and SOri73, two T-type cluster member candidates, would have likely masses between 3 and 7 MJup if their age is 3 Myr. SOri73 awaits confirmation of its methane atmosphere. Here I present the results of a search of T-type objects in an area of ~120 arcmin^2 in the Sigma Orionis cluster, the confirmation of the presence of methane absorption in SOri73 and the study of SOri70 and 73 cluster membership via photometric colors and accurate proper motion analysis. This results would have a dramatic impact in the cluster mass function, in one of the scenarios explored, they suggest a decrease in cluster members with planetary masses in the interval 3.5-6 Mjup.

We present the K band FP of the ETGs members of the clusters observed by the WINGS survey. The data confirm a different tilt of the FP with respect to the V solution and the presence of a substantial tilt in the K band. This led us to further investigate the hypothesis that ETG non-homology greatly contribute to the tilt of the FP.

The WINGS data show that there are now several evidence of both structural and dynamical non-homology for the class of ETGs. Among these we will discuss in detail the tight relation between the mass of the ETGs, their stellar mass-to-light ratio M/L, and the Sersic index n describing the shape of their light profiles. We guess through a series of mock simulations that this relation acts as a fine-tuning that keeps small the scatter around the FP. We therefore conclude that ETG non-homology is closely connected either with the problem of the tilt and with the small scatter around the FP.

ExPo is an imaging polarimeter that has been built in Utrecht University. ExPo works in the visible, and it combines the dual-beam technique, together with very short exposure times and a high polarization sensitivity. After four successful campaigns at the William Herschel Telescope, we have obtained polarization images of circumstellar environments around T Tau's and Herbig Ae's stars, evolved (post-AGB) stars and planets like Venus and Saturn. Our results prove the utility of imaging polarimetry to characterize faint structures around very different objects. In this talk I will go through the instrument details, and I will show some of our science results.

In his public talk, Prof. Narayan will summarize our knowledge of Black Holes in the universe. He will describe how Black Holes are discovered, how their properties are measured, and what the results mean. He will also discuss the many ways in which Black Holes influence their surroundings and the profound effect they have had on the evolution of the universe.

An astrophysical black hole is completely described with just two parameters: its mass and its dimensionless spin. A few dozen black holes have mass estimates, but until recently none had a reliable spin estimate. The first spins have now been measured for black holes in X-ray binaries. The talk will describe the method used to make these measurements and will discuss implications of the results obtained so far.

This question is important because a large fraction of planetary nebulae (about 80%) are bipolar or elliptical rather than spherically symmetric. Modern theories invoke magnetic fields, among other causes, to explain the rich variety of aspherical components observed in PNe, as ejected matter is trapped along magnetic field lines. But, until recently, this idea was mostly a theoretical claim. Jordan et al. (2005) report the detection of kG magnetic fields in the central star of two non-spherical PNe, namely NGC1360 and LSS1362. We find that, contrary to that work, the magnetic field is null within errors for both stars. Then, a direct evidence of magnetic fields on the central stars of PNe is still missing — either the magnetic field is much weaker (< 600 G) than previously reported, or more complex (thus leading to cancellations), or both. The role of magnetic fields shaping PNe is still an open question.

I present a general overview of the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) space mission. PLATO was approved by ESA’s Science Programme Committee, together with Euclid and Solar Orbiter missions, to enter the so-called definition phase, i.e. the step required before the final decision is taken (only two missions will be implemented). To be launched in 2018, PLATO is a third generation mission, which will take advantage of the scientific return from the currently flying space missions CoRoT (CNES, ESA, launched in 2006), and Kepler (NASA, launched in 2009). Moreover, the preparation and exploitation of the missions will benefit from the GAIA (ESA) mission data, together with new generation ground-based instrumentation like North-HARPS, GIANO, CARMENES, etc. Finally, I summarize the current organization status of the mission,focusing on the Spanish role within the consortium.

Spectroscopic analysis of stellar populations is widely used to understand the history of many systems including globular clusters, nuclear star clusters, dwarf galaxies through to giant galaxies over a wide range of redshifts. In this talk I first explore aspects of stellar population fitting, focussing on the effects of interacting binary stars on the yields and hence the spectra of early-type galaxies. The second part of the talk concentrates on what we know about supernovae type Ia and the importance of understanding their contributions to the chemical evolution of galaxies and stellar populations.

This lecture will address recent progress in modeling the emergence of cosmic structure at high redshifts. Also new insights gained from numerical simulations into the processes relevant for star formation are presented. Rapid magnetic field growth in galaxies and the important role of proto-stellar outflows regulating star formation up to pc scales are particularly highlighted.