No abstract

We present a catalog of nearby exoplanets, available at http://exoplanets.org and ApJ 646, 505 (published version available at the link above). It contains the 172 known low mass companions with orbits established through radial velocity and transit measurements around stars within 200 pc. We include 5 previously unpublished exoplanets orbiting the stars HD 11964, HD 66428, HD 99109, HD 107148, and HD 164922. We update orbits for 90 additional exoplanets including many whose orbits have not been revised since their announcement, and include radial velocity time series from the Lick, Keck, and Anglo-Australian Observatory planet searches. Both these new and previously published velocities are more precise here due to improvements in our data reduction pipeline, which we applied to archival spectra. We present a brief summary of the global properties of the known exoplanets, including their distributions of orbital semimajor axis, minimum mass, and orbital eccentricity.Comment: 45-page preprint version. The published ApJ version is available at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2006ApJ...646..505B . Find further information at http://exoplanets.or

In this paper, we present new brightness and magnetic surface images of the young K0 dwarfs AB Doradus and LQ Hydrae, and of the K1 subgiant of the RS CVn system HR 1099 (=V711 Tauri), reconstructed from Zeeman–Doppler imaging spectropolarimetric observations collected at the Anglo‐Australian Telescope during five observing campaigns (totalling 50 nights), from 1998 January to 2002 January. Along with the older images of the same stars (published in previous papers), our complete data set represents the first long‐term series on temporal fluctuations of magnetic topologies of very active stars. All of the magnetic images presented here indicate that large regions with predominantly azimuthal magnetic fields are continuously present at the surfaces of these stars. We take this as further evidence that the underlying dynamo processes that produce them are probably distributed throughout the entire convective zone (and not confined at its base, as in the Sun). We speculate that the radial and azimuthal field maps that we recover correspond, respectively, to the poloidal and toroidal components of the large‐scale dynamo field. We find, in particular, that some signatures, for instance the relative fraction of magnetic energy stored in the large‐scale poloidal and toroidal field components, and the polarity of the axisymmetric component of the field, are variable with time, and provide potentially fruitful diagnostics for investigating magnetic cycles in active stars other than the Sun. We report here the detection of partial polarity switches in some of the axisymmetric field components of two of our programme stars (AB Dor and LQ Hya), suggesting that the dynamo operating in these stars may be cyclic.

Stellar magnetic field measurements obtained from spectropolarimetry offer key data for activity and dynamo studies, and we present the results of a major high-resolution spectropolarimetric Bcool project magnetic snapshot survey of 170 solar-type stars from observations with the Telescope Bernard Lyot and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. For each target star a high signal-to-noise circularly polarised Stokes V profile has been obtained using Least-Squares Deconvolution, and used to detect surface magnetic fields and measure the corresponding mean surface longitudinal magnetic field (B l ). Chromospheric activity indicators were also measured.Surface magnetic fields were detected for 67 stars, with 21 of these stars classified as mature solar-type stars, a result that increases by a factor of four the number of mature solar-type stars on which magnetic fields have been observed. In addition, a magnetic field was detected for 3 out of 18 of the subgiant stars surveyed. For the population of K-dwarfs the mean value of |B l | (|B l | mean ) was also found to be higher (5.7 G) than |B l | mean measured for the G-dwarfs (3.2 G) and the F-dwarfs (3.3 G). For the sample as a whole |B l | mean increases with rotation rate and decreases with age, and the upper envelope for |B l | correlates well with the observed chromospheric emission. Stars with a chromospheric S-index greater than about 0.2 show a high magnetic field detection rate and so offer optimal targets for future studies.This survey constitutes the most extensive spectropolarimetric survey of cool stars undertaken to date, and suggests that it is feasible to pursue magnetic mapping of a wide range of moderately active solar-type stars to improve understanding of their surface fields and dynamos.

Abstract. New radial velocities of α Cen A & B obtained in the framework the Anglo-Australian Planet Search programme as well as in the CORALIE programme are added to those by Endl et al. (2001) to improve the precision of the orbital parameters. The resulting masses are 1.105 ± 0.0070 M and 0.934 ± 0.0061 M for A and B respectively. The factors limiting how accurately these masses can be derived from a combined visual-spectroscopic solution are investigated. The total effect of the convective blueshift and the gravitational redshift is also investigated and estimated to differ by 215 ± 8 m s −1 between the components. This suggests that the difference in convective blueshift between the components is much smaller than predicted from current hydrodynamical model atmosphere calculations.

We present in this paper a spectroscopic monitoring of the Lupus post T Tauri star RX J1508.6–4423 carried out at two closely separated epochs (1998 May 06 and 10) with the UCL Echelle Spectrograph on the 3.9‐m Anglo‐Australian Telescope. Applying least‐squares convolution and maximum entropy image reconstruction techniques to our sets of spectra, we demonstrate that this star features on its surface a large cool polar cap with several appendages extending to lower latitudes, as well as one spot close to the equator. The images reconstructed at both epochs are in good overall agreement, except for a photospheric shear that we interpret in terms of latitudinal differential rotation. Given the spot distribution at the epoch of our observations, differential rotation could only be investigated between latitudes 15° and 60°. We find in particular that the observed differential rotation is compatible with a solar‐like law (i.e., with rotation rate decreasing towards high latitudes proportionally to sin2 l, where l denotes the latitude) in this particular latitude range. Assuming that such a law can be extrapolated to all latitudes, we find that the equator of RX J1508.6–4423 does one more rotational cycle than the pole every 50±10 d, implying a photospheric shear 2 to 3 times stronger than that of the Sun. We also discover that the Hα emission profile of RX J1508.6–4423 is most of the time double‐peaked and strongly modulated with the rotation period of the star. We interpret this rotationally modulated emission as being caused by a dense and complex prominence system, the circumstellar distribution of which is obtained through maximum entropy Doppler tomography. These maps show in particular that prominences form a complete and inhomogeneous ring around the star, precisely at the corotation radius. We use the total Hα and Hβ emission flux to estimate that the mass of the whole prominence system is about 1020 g. From our observation that the whole cloud system surrounding the star is regenerated in less than 4 d, we conclude that the braking time‐scale of RX J1508.6–4423 is shorter than 1 Gyr, and that prominence expulsion is thus likely to contribute significantly to the rotational spindown of young low‐mass stars.

We present spectropolarimetric observations of the young, single early G-dwarf HD 171488. These observations were obtained over a five-night period in 2004 September at the 3.9-m Anglo-Australian Telescope using the SEMPOL spectropolarimeter visitor instrument. Using the technique of least-squares deconvolution to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the data, we have applied Zeeman Doppler imaging to reconstruct brightness and magnetic surface topologies of the star. The brightness image shows a large polar spot with weaker low- to mid-latitude features, confirming an earlier Doppler imaging observation. The reconstruction of the surface magnetic field shows regions of radial field at all latitudes (except near the pole) and regions of azimuthal field predominantly at high latitudes (60°-70°), with the azimuthal field almost forming a ring around the polar regions. We have incorporated a solar-like differential rotation law into the imaging process to determine the surface differential rotation of cool spots on HD 171488. This gives an equatorial rotation rate of 1.313 +/- 0.004 d and a surface shear of d? = 0.402 +/- 0.044 radd-1. This means that the equator of HD 171488 laps the poles every ~16 +/- 2 d and that HD 171488 has a photospheric shear approximately seven times the solar value. This is the largest measurement of surface differential rotation yet obtained using the Doppler imaging method and is over twice the value of previously observed early G-dwarfs

We present four new exoplanets: HIP 14810 b & c, HD 154345 b, and HD 187123 c. The two planets orbiting HIP 14810, from the N2K project, have masses of 3.9 and 0.76 M Jup . We have searched the radial velocity time series of 90 known exoplanet systems and found new residual trends due to additional, long period companions. Two stars known to host one exoplanet have sufficient curvature in the residuals to a one planet fit to constrain the minimum mass of the outer companion to be substellar: HD 68988 c with 8 M Jup < m sin i < 20 M Jup and HD 187123 c with 3 M Jup < m sin i < 7 M Jup , both with P > 8 y. We have also searched the velocity residuals of known exoplanet systems for prospective low-amplitude exoplanets and present some candidates. We discuss techniques for constraining the mass and period of exoplanets in such cases, and for quantifying the significance of weak RV signals. We also present two substellar companions with incomplete orbits and periods longer than 8 y: HD 24040 b and HD 154345 b with m sin i < 20M Jup and m sin i < 10 M Jup , respectively.