We report parallax measurements for 70 ultracool dwarfs (UCDs) including 11 late-M, 32 L , and 27 T dwarfs. Among this sample, 14 M and L dwarfs exhibit low-surface gravity features, six are close binary systems, and two are metal-poor subdwarfs. We combined our new measurements with 114 previously published UCD parallaxes and optical -mid-IR photometry to examine trends in spectral-type/absolute magnitude, and color-color diagrams. We report new polynomial relations between spectral type and M JHK . Including resolved L/T transition binaries in the relations, we find no reason to differentiate between a "bright" (unresolved binary) and "faint" (single source) sample across the L/T

Context. At about 1000 days after the launch of Gaia we present the first Gaia data release, Gaia DR1, consisting of astrometry and photometry for over 1 billion sources brighter than magnitude 20.7. Aims. A summary of Gaia DR1 is presented along with illustrations of the scientific quality of the data, followed by a discussion of the limitations due to the preliminary nature of this release. Methods. The raw data collected by Gaia during the first 14 months of the mission have been processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) and turned into an astrometric and photometric catalogue. Results. Gaia DR1 consists of three components: a primary astrometric data set which contains the positions, parallaxes, and mean proper motions for about 2 million of the brightest stars in common with the Hipparcos and Tycho-2 catalogues -a realisation of the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) -and a secondary astrometric data set containing the positions for an additional 1.1 billion sources. The second component is the photometric data set, consisting of mean G-band magnitudes for all sources. The G-band light curves and the characteristics of ∼3000 Cepheid and RR Lyrae stars, observed at high cadence around the south ecliptic pole, form the third component. For the primary astrometric data set the typical uncertainty is about 0.3 mas for the positions and parallaxes, and about 1 mas yr −1 for the proper motions. A systematic component of ∼0.3 mas should be added to the parallax uncertainties. For the subset of ∼94 000 Hipparcos stars in the primary data set, the proper motions are much more precise at about 0.06 mas yr −1 . For the secondary astrometric data set, the typical uncertainty of the positions is ∼10 mas. The median uncertainties on the mean G-band magnitudes range from the mmag level to ∼0.03 mag over the magnitude range 5 to 20.7. Conclusions. Gaia DR1 is an important milestone ahead of the next Gaia data release, which will feature five-parameter astrometry for all sources. Extensive validation shows that Gaia DR1 represents a major advance in the mapping of the heavens and the availability of basic stellar data that underpin observational astrophysics. Nevertheless, the very preliminary nature of this first Gaia data release does lead to a number of important limitations to the data quality which should be carefully considered before drawing conclusions from the data.

The Second Workshop on Extreme Precision Radial Velocities defined circa 2015 the state of the art Doppler precision and identified the critical path challenges for reaching 10 cm s −1 measurement precision. The presentations and discussion of key issues for instrumentation and data analysis and the workshop recommendations for achieving this bold precision are summarized here.Beginning with the HARPS spectrograph, technological advances for precision radial velocity measurements have focused on building extremely stable instruments. To reach still higher precision, future spectrometers will need to improve upon the state of the art, producing even higher fidelity spectra. This should be possible with improved environmental control, greater stability in the illumination of the spectrometer optics, better detectors, more precise wavelength calibration, and broader bandwidth spectra. Key data analysis challenges for the precision radial velocity community include distinguishing center of mass Keplerian motion from photospheric velocities (time correlated noise) and the proper treatment of telluric contamination. Success here is coupled to the instrument design, but also requires the implementation of robust statistical and modeling techniques. Center of mass velocities produce Doppler shifts that affect every line identically, while photospheric velocities produce line profile asymmetries with wavelength and temporal dependencies that are different from Keplerian signals.Exoplanets are an important subfield of astronomy and there has been an impressive rate of discovery over the past two decades. However, higher precision radial velocity measurements are required to serve as a discovery technique for potentially habitable worlds, to confirm and characterize detections from transit missions, and to provide mass measurements for other space-based missions. The future of exoplanet science has very different trajectories depending on the precision that can ultimately be achieved with Doppler measurements.

We have conducted a kinematic study of 165 young M dwarfs with ages of 300 Myr. Our sample is composed of stars and brown dwarfs with spectral types ranging from K7 to L0, detected by ROSAT and with photometric distances of 25 pc assuming the stars are single and on the main-sequence. In order to find stars kinematically linked to known young moving groups (YMGs), we measured radial velocities for the complete sample with Keck and CFHT optical spectroscopy and trigonometric parallaxes for 75 of the M dwarfs with the CAPSCam instrument on the du Pont 2.5-m Telescope. Due to their youthful overluminosity and unresolved binarity, the original photometric distances for our sample underestimated the distances by 70% on average, excluding two extremely young ( 3 Myr) objects found to have distances beyond a few hundred parsecs. We searched for kinematic matches to 14 reported YMGs and identified 9 new members of the AB Dor YMG and 2 of the Ursa Majoris group. Additional possible candidates include 6 Castor, 4 Ursa Majoris, 2 AB Dor members, and 1 member each of the Her-Lyr and β Pic groups. Our sample also contains 27 young low-mass stars and 4 brown dwarfs with ages 150 Myr which are not associated with any known YMG. We identified an additional 15 stars which are kinematic matches to one of the YMGs, but the ages from spectroscopic diagnostics and/or the positions on the sky do not match. These warn against grouping stars together based only on kinematics and that a confluence of evidence is required to claim that a group of stars originated from the same star-forming event.

Radial velocity monitoring has found the signature of a M sin i = 1.3 M ⊕ planet located within the Habitable Zone (HZ) of Proxima Centauri (Anglada-Escudé et al. 2016). Despite a hotter past and an active host star the planet Proxima b could have retained enough volatiles to sustain surface habitability (Ribas et al. 2016). Here we use a 3D Global Climate Model (GCM) to simulate Proxima b's atmosphere and water cycle for its two likely rotation modes (1:1 and 3:2 spin-orbit resonances) while varying the unconstrained surface water inventory and atmospheric greenhouse effect. Any low-obliquity low-eccentricity planet within the HZ of its star should be in one of the climate regimes discussed here. We find that a broad range of atmospheric compositions allow surface liquid water. On a tidally-locked planet with sufficient surface water inventory, liquid water is always present, at least in the substellar region. With a non-synchronous rotation, this requires a minimum greenhouse warming (∼10 mbar of CO 2 and 1 bar of N 2). If the planet is dryer, ∼0.5 bar/1.5 bars of CO 2 (respectively for asynchronous/synchronous rotation) suffice to prevent the trapping of any arbitrary small water inventory into polar/nightside ice caps. We produce reflection/emission spectra and phase curves for the simulated climates. We find that atmospheric characterization will be possible by direct imaging with forthcoming large telescopes. The angular separation of 7λ/D at 1 µm (with the E-ELT) and a contrast of ∼10 −7 will enable high-resolution spectroscopy and the search for molecular signatures, including H 2 O, O 2 , and CO 2. The observation of thermal phase curves can be attempted with JWST, thanks to a contrast of 2 × 10 −5 at 10 µm. Proxima b will also be an exceptional target for future IR interferometers. Within a decade it will be possible to image Proxima b and possibly determine whether this exoplanet's surface is habitable.

Context. The Calar Alto high-Resolution search for M dwarfs with Exo-earths with Near-infrared and optical Echelle Spectrographs (CARMENES) survey is searching for Earth-like planets orbiting M dwarfs using the radial velocity method. Studying the stellar activity of the target stars is important to avoid false planet detections and to improve our understanding of the atmospheres of late-type stars. Aims. In this work we present measurements of activity indicators at visible and near-infrared wavelengths for 331 M dwarfs observed with CARMENES. Our aim is to identify the activity indicators that are most sensitive and easiest to measure, and the correlations among these indicators. We also wish to characterise their variability. Methods. Using a spectral subtraction technique, we measured pseudo-equivalent widths of the He I D3, Hα, He I λ10833 Å, and Pa β lines, the Na I D doublet, and the Ca II infrared triplet, which have a chromospheric component in active M dwarfs. In addition, we measured an index of the strength of two TiO and two VO bands, which are formed in the photosphere. We also searched for periodicities in these activity indicators for all sample stars using generalised Lomb-Scargle periodograms. Results. We find that the most slowly rotating stars of each spectral subtype have the strongest Hα absorption. Hα is correlated most strongly with He I D3, whereas Na I D and the Ca II infrared triplet are also correlated with Hα. He I λ10833 Å and Paβ show no clear correlations with the other indicators. The TiO bands show an activity effect that does not appear in the VO bands. We find that the relative variations of Hα and He I D3 are smaller for stars with higher activity levels, while this anti-correlation is weaker for Na I D and the Ca II infrared triplet, and is absent for He I λ10833 Å and Paβ. Periodic variation with the rotation period most commonly appears in the TiO bands, Hα, and in the Ca II infrared triplet.

We present precise photospheric parameters of 282 M dwarfs determined from fitting the most recent version of PHOENIX models to high-resolution CARMENES spectra in the visible (0.52–0.96 μm) and NIR wavelength range (0.96–1.71 μm). With its aim to search for habitable planets around M dwarfs, several planets of different masses have been detected. The characterization of the target sample is important for the ability to derive and constrain the physical properties of any planetary systems that are detected. As a continuation of previous work in this context, we derived the fundamental stellar parameters effective temperature, surface gravity, and metallicity of the CARMENES M-dwarf targets from PHOENIX model fits using a χ2 method. We calculated updated PHOENIX stellar atmosphere models that include a new equation of state to especially account for spectral features of low-temperature stellar atmospheres as well as new atomic and molecular line lists. We show the importance of selecting magnetically insensitive lines for fitting to avoid effects of stellar activity in the line profiles. For the first time, we directly compare stellar parameters derived from multiwavelength range spectra, simultaneously observed for the same star. In comparison with literature values we show that fundamental parameters derived from visible spectra and visible and NIR spectra combined are in better agreement than those derived from the same spectra in the NIR alone.

Context. The K2.5 dwarf HD 40307 has been reported to host three super-Earths. The system lacks massive planets and is therefore a potential candidate for having additional low-mass planetary companions. Aims. We re-derive Doppler measurements from public HARPS spectra of HD 40307 to confirm the significance of the reported signals using independent data analysis methods. We also investigate these measurements for additional low-amplitude signals. Methods. We used Bayesian analysis of our radial velocities to estimate the probability densities of different model parameters. We also estimated the relative probabilities of models with differing numbers of Keplerian signals and verified their significance using periodogram analyses. We investigated the relation of the detected signals with the chromospheric emission of the star. As previously reported for other objects, we found that radial velocity signals correlated with the S-index are strongly wavelength dependent. Results. We identify two additional clear signals with periods of 34 and 51 days, both corresponding to planet candidates with minimum masses a few times that of the Earth. An additional sixth candidate is initially found at a period of 320 days. However, this signal correlates strongly with the chromospheric emission from the star and is also strongly wavelength dependent. When analysing the red half of the spectra only, the five putative planetary signals are recovered together with a very significant periodicity at about 200 days. This signal has a similar amplitude as the other new signals reported in the current work and corresponds to a planet candidate with M sin i ∼ 7 M ⊕ (HD 40307 g). Conclusions. We show that Doppler measurements can be filtered for activity-induced signals if enough photons and a sufficient wavelength interval are available. If the signal corresponding to HD 40307 g is a genuine Doppler signal of planetary origin, this candidate planet might be capable of supporting liquid water on its surface according to the current definition of the liquid water habitable zone around a star and is not likely to suffer from tidal locking. Also, at an angular separation of ∼46 mas, HD 40307 g would be a primary target for a future space-based direct-imaging mission.