We simulate the coupled stellar and tidal evolution of short-period binary stars (orbital period $P_{orb} lsim$8 days) to investigate the orbital oscillations, instellation cycles, and orbital stability of circumbinary planets (CBPs). We consider two tidal models and show that both predict an outward-then-inward evolution of the binary’s semi-major axis abin and eccentricity ebin. This orbital evolution drives a similar evolution of the minimum CBP semi-major axis for orbital stability. By expanding on previous models to include the evolution of the mass concentration, we show that the maximum in the CBP orbital stability limit tends to occur 100 Myr after the planets form, a factor of 100 longer than previous investigations. This result provides further support for the hypothesis that the early stellar-tidal evolution of binary stars has removed CBPs from short-period binaries. We then apply the models to Kepler-47 b, a CBP orbiting close to its host stars’ stability limit, to show that if the binary’s initial $e_{bin} gsim$0.24, the planet would have been orbiting within the instability zone in the past and probably wouldn’t have survived. For stable, hypothetical cases in which the stability limit does not reach a planet’s orbit, we find that the amplitudes of abin and ebin oscillations can damp by up to 10% and 50%, respectively. Finally, we consider equal-mass stars with Porb= 7.5 days and compare the HZ to the stability limit. We find that for stellar masses $lsim0.12M_{odot}$, the HZ is completely unstable, even if the binary orbit is circular. For $e_{bin} lsim$0.5, that limit increases to 0.17M?, and the HZ is partially destabilized for stellar masses up to 0.45M?. These results may help guide searches for potentially habitable CBPs, as well as characterize their evolution and likelihood to support life after they are found.
David Fleming (University of Washington, Advisor: Rory Barnes) successfully defended his dissertation for PhD in Astronomy with focus in Data…
We model the long-term X-ray and ultraviolet (XUV) luminosity of TRAPPIST-1 to constrain the evolving high-energy radiation environment experienced by its planetary system. Using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, we derive probabilistic constraints for TRAPPIST-1’s stellar and XUV evolution that account for observational uncertainties, degeneracies between model parameters, and empirical data of low-mass stars. We constrain TRAPPIST-1’s mass to m sstarf = 0.089 ± 0.001 M ? and find that its early XUV luminosity likely saturated at ${mathrm{log}}_{10}({L}_{mathrm{XUV}}/{L}_{mathrm{bol}})=-{3.03}_{-0.12}^{+0.23}$. From the posterior distribution, we infer that there is a ~40% chance that TRAPPIST-1 is still in the saturated phase today, suggesting that TRAPPIST-1 has maintained high activity and L XUV/L bol ? 10?3 for several gigayears. TRAPPIST-1’s planetary system therefore likely experienced a persistent and extreme XUV flux environment, potentially driving significant atmospheric erosion and volatile loss. The inner planets likely received XUV fluxes ~103104 times that of the modern Earth during TRAPPIST-1’s ~1 Gyr long pre-main-sequence phase. Deriving these constraints via MCMC is computationally nontrivial, so scaling our methods to constrain the XUV evolution of a larger number of M dwarfs that harbor terrestrial exoplanets would incur significant computational expenses. We demonstrate that approxposterior, an open source Python machine learning package for approximate Bayesian inference using Gaussian processes, accurately and efficiently replicates our analysis using 980 times less computational time and 1330 times fewer simulations than MCMC sampling using emcee. We find that approxposterior derives constraints with mean errors on the best-fit values and 1? uncertainties of 0.61% and 5.5%, respectively, relative to emcee.
We derive analytic, closed form, numerically stable solutions for the total flux received from a spherical planet, moon, or star during an occultation if the specific intensity map of the body is expressed as a sum of spherical harmonics. Our expressions are valid to arbitrary degree and may be computed recursively for speed. The formalism we develop here applies to the computation of stellar transit light curves, planetary secondary eclipse light curves, and planetplanet/planetmoon occultation light curves, as well as thermal (rotational) phase curves. In this paper, we also introduce starry, an open-source package written in C++ and wrapped in Python that computes these light curves. The algorithm in starry is six orders of magnitude faster than direct numerical integration and several orders of magnitude more precise. starry also computes analytic derivatives of the light curves with respect to all input parameters for use in gradient-based optimization and inference, such as Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC), allowing users to quickly and efficiently fit observed light curves to infer properties of a celestial body’s surface map. (Please see https://github.com/rodluger/starry, https://rodluger.github.io/starry/, and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1312286).
Proxima Centauri b provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand the evolution and nature of terrestrial planets orbiting M dwarfs. Although Proxima Cen b orbits within its star’s habitable zone, multiple plausible evolutionary paths could have generated different environments that may or may not be habitable. Here, we use 1-D coupled climate-photochemical models to generate self-consistent atmospheres for several evolutionary scenarios, including high-O2, high-CO2, and more Earth-like atmospheres, with both oxic and anoxic compositions. We show that these modeled environments can be habitable or uninhabitable at Proxima Cen b’s position in the habitable zone. We use radiative transfer models to generate synthetic spectra and thermal phase curves for these simulated environments, and use instrument models to explore our ability to discriminate between possible planetary states.