Context. Many efforts to detect Earth-like planets around low-mass stars are presently devoted in almost every extra-solar planet search. M dwarfs are considered ideal targets for Doppler radial velocity searches because their low masses and luminosities make low-mass planets orbiting in their habitable zones more easily detectable than those around higher mass stars. Nonetheless, the statistics of frequency of low-mass planets hosted by low mass stars remains poorly constrained. Aims. Our M-dwarf radial velocity monitoring with HARPS-N within the GAPS (Global architectures of Planetary Systems) -ICE (Institut de Ciències de l'Espai/CSIC-IEEC) -IAC (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias) project ⋆⋆ can provide a major contribution to the widening of the current statistics through the in-depth analysis of accurate radial velocity observations in a narrow range of spectral sub-types (79 stars, between dM0 to dM3). Spectral accuracy will enable us to reach the precision needed to detect small planets with a few earth masses. Our survey will bring a contribute to the surveys devoted to the search for planets around M-dwarfs, mainly focused on the M-dwarf population of the northern emisphere, for which we will provide an estimate of the planet occurence. Methods. We present here a long duration radial velocity monitoring of the M1 dwarf star GJ 3998 with HARPS-N to identify periodic signals in the data. Almost simultaneous photometric observations were carried out within the APACHE and EXORAP programs to characterize the stellar activity and to distinguish from the periodic signals those due to activity and to the presence of planetary companions. We run an MCMC simulation and use Bayesian model selection to determine the number of planets in this system, to estimate their orbital parameters and minimum masses and for a proper treatment of the activity noise. Results. The radial velocities have a dispersion in excess of their internal errors due to at least four superimposed signals, with periods of 30.7, 13.7, 42.5 and 2.65 days. Our data are well described by a 2-planet Keplerian (13.

Aims. XO-2 is the first confirmed wide stellar binary system where the almost twin components XO-2N and XO-2S have planets, and it is a peculiar laboratory in which to investigate the diversity of planetary systems. This stimulated a detailed characterization study of the stellar and planetary components based on new observations. Methods. We collected high-resolution spectra with the HARPS-N spectrograph and multi-band light curves. Spectral analysis led to an accurate determination of the stellar atmospheric parameters and characterization of the stellar activity, and high-precision radial velocities of XO-2N were measured. We collected 14 transit light curves of XO-2Nb used to improve the transit parameters. Photometry provided accurate magnitude differences between the stars and a measure of their rotation periods. Results. The iron abundance of XO-2N was found to be +0.054 dex greater, within more than 3σ, than that of XO-2S. The existence of a longterm variation in the radial velocities of XO-2N is confirmed, and we detected a turnover with respect to previous measurements. We suggest the presence of a second massive companion in an outer orbit or the stellar activity cycle as possible causes of the observed acceleration. The latter explanation seems more plausible with the present dataset. We obtained an accurate value of the projected spin-orbit angle for the XO-2N system (λ = 7• ± 11 • ), and estimated the real 3D spin-orbit angle (ψ = 27 +12 −27 degrees). We measured the XO-2 rotation periods, and found a value of P = 41.6 ± 1.1 days in the case of XO-2N, in excellent agreement with the predictions. The period of XO-2S appears shorter, with an ambiguity between 26 and 34.5 days that we cannot solve with the present dataset alone. The analysis of the stellar activity shows that XO-2N appears to be more active than the companion, perhaps because we sampled different phases of their activity cycle, or because of an interaction between XO-2N and its hot Jupiter that we could not confirm.

Abstract. First, we summarize the four-year long efforts undertaken to build the final setup of the APACHE Project, a photometric transit search for small-size planets orbiting bright, low-mass M dwarfs. Next, we describe the present status of the APACHE survey, officially started in July 2012 at the site of the Astronomical Observatory of the Autonomous Region of the Aosta Valley, in the Western Italian Alps. Finally, we briefly discuss the potentially far-reaching consequences of a multi-technique characterization program of the (potentially planet-bearing) APACHE targets.

We present results of a multi-site photometric campaign on the high-amplitude δ Scuti star KIC 6382916 in the Kepler field. The star was observed over a 85-d interval at five different sites in North America and Europe during 2011. Kepler photometry and ground-based multicolour light curves of KIC 6382916 are used to investigate the pulsational content and to identify the principal modes. High-dispersion spectroscopy was also obtained in order to derive the stellar parameters and projected rotational velocity. From an analysis of the Kepler time series, three independent frequencies and a few hundred combination frequencies are found. The light curve is dominated by two modes with frequencies f 1 = 4.9107 and f 2 = 6.4314 d −1 . The third mode with f 3 = 8.0350 d −1 has a much lower amplitude. We attempt mode identification by examining the amplitude ratios and phase differences in different wavebands from multicolour photometry and comparing them to calculations for different spherical harmonic degree, l. We find that the theoretical models for f 1 and f 2 are in a best agreement with the observations and lead to value of l = 1 modes, but the mode identification of f 3 is uncertain due to its low amplitude. Non-adiabatic pulsation models show that frequencies below 6 d −1 are stable, which means that the low frequency of f 1 cannot be reproduced. This is further confirmation that current models predict a narrower pulsation frequency range than actually observed.