Exoplanets and Astrobiology

    General
    Description

    The search for life in the universe has been driven by recent discoveries of planets around other stars (known as exoplanets), becoming one of the most active fields in modern astrophysics. The growing number of new exoplanets discovered in recent years and the recent advance on the study of their atmospheres are not only providing new valuable information about its physical properties, but also allowing to constrain the properties of the Solar system's planets within a more global context. The field is approaching to the important discovery of the first potentially habitable planets and encouraging more detailed studies of them. With the launching of upcoming related satellites like JWST, CHEOPS, TESS, ARIEL and PLATO, the exoplanets field faces a bright future.

    It is for this reason that this field is aid of, and at the same time promotes, the development of increasingly sensitive and stable instrumentation for both, ground-based telescopes and space missions. Our group is particularly prepared for these two fronts. On the one hand, during the last years we have developed observational and reduction techniques of exoplanet transits data for the ORM telescopes, ours being one of the most productive groups in the exploitation of GTC. On the other hand, all ESA space missions (present and future) related to exoplanets have one or more components of the project as CoIs. Within the frame of this project, we intend that IAC researchers maintain an advantageous position regarding the operation of OSIRIS and CanariCam, first light

    GTC's instruments, and participate in the construction, commissioning and operation of new instruments such as the high resolution optical spectrograph HORUS at GTC. The exploitation of the photometry and spectroscopy of transits with LIRIS at WHT is also one of our principal interests, especially in preparation for the installation in 2015 of EMIR on the GTC .

    To summarize, the project "Exoplanets and Astrobiology" will focus on these four action lines:

    1) The characterization of atmospheric and physical properties of exoplanets (GTC, WHT, ARIEL, HARPSN, CARMENES, ESPRESSO, etc. ..)

    2) The search and confirmation of exoplanets by transits techniques (CoRoT, Kepler, K2, CHEOPS, XO, LCOGT, W FC, DISH, etc. ..)

    3) The search and confirmation of exoplanet by radial velocity techniques (HARPSN, HORUS, LCOGT, SONG, CARMENES)

    4) Astrobiology

    Principal investigator
    Project staff
    1. Detection of He in the atmosphere of an exoplanet from the ground, published in Science
    2. Detection of a super-earth around Barnard star, published in Nature
    3. Detection of the first TESS planets, with several papers of high relevance
    4. Discovery of Na and Halpha features in the spectrum of KELT-20b with TNG
    5. Publication of the Handbook of Exoplanets, the most extensive work of reference in the field of exoplanets. The Handbook was edited by members of our group, and includes contributions by about 300 experts worldwide, including 12 members of IAC.

    Related publications

    A deeper view of the CoRoT-9 planetary system. A small non-zero eccentricity for CoRoT-9b likely generated by planet-planet scattering 2017A&A...603A..43B
    Testing the existence of optical linear polarization in young brown dwarfs 2017MNRAS.468.3024M
    High-precision optical polarimetry of the accreting black hole V404 Cyg during the 2015 June outburst 2017MNRAS.468.4362K
    Limits to the presence of transiting circumbinary planets in CoRoT Data 2017A&A...602A.117K
    Feature-rich transmission spectrum for WASP-127b. Cloud-free skies for the puffiest known super-Neptune? 2017A&A...602L..15P
    New ultracool subdwarfs identified in large-scale surveys using Virtual Observatory tools (Corrigendum). I. UKIDSS LAS DR5 vs. SDSS DR7 2017A&A...597C...3L
    The GTC exoplanet transit spectroscopy survey. V. A spectrally-resolved Rayleigh scattering slope in GJ 3470b 2017A&A...600A.138C
    The GTC exoplanet transit spectroscopy survey. VI. Detection of sodium in WASP-52b's cloudy atmosphere 2017A&A...600L..11C
    The K2-ESPRINT project. VI. K2-105 b, a hot Neptune around a metal-rich G-dwarf 2017PASJ...69...29N
    Mass determination of K2-19b and K2-19c from radial velocities and transit timing variations 2017A&A...601A.128N
    Optical and Near-infrared Spectra of σ Orionis Isolated Planetary-mass Objects 2017ApJ...842...65Z
    Primeval very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs - II. The most metal-poor substellar object 2017MNRAS.468..261Z
    Multi-filter Transit Observations of HAT-P-3b and TrES-3b with Multiple Northern Hemisphere Telescopes 2017PASP..129f4401R
    From dense hot Jupiter to low-density Neptune: The discovery of WASP-127b, WASP-136b, and WASP-138b 2017A&A...599A...3L
    A new L5 brown dwarf member of the Hyades cluster with chromospheric activity 2017A&A...599A..78P
    TEE, an estimator for the precision of eclipse and transit minimum times 2017A&A...599A..93D
    K2-60b and K2-107b. A Sub-Jovian and a Jovian Planet from the K2 Mission 2017AJ....153..130E
    EPIC 219388192b—An Inhabitant of the Brown Dwarf Desert in the Ruprecht 147 Open Cluster 2017AJ....153..131N
    WD 1145+017 photometric observations during eight months of high activity 2017MNRAS.465.3267G
    Discovery of wide low and very low-mass binary systems using Virtual Observatory tools 2017MNRAS.466.2983G
    Optical and near-infrared linear polarization of low and intermediate-gravity ultracool dwarfs 2017MNRAS.466.3184M
    A super-Earth orbiting the nearby M dwarf GJ 536 2017A&A...597A.108S
    New planetary systems from the Calan-Hertfordshire Extrasolar Planet Search 2017MNRAS.466..443J
    CARMENES input catalogue of M dwarfs. II. High-resolution imaging with FastCam 2017A&A...597A..47C
    EPIC 201702477b: A Transiting Brown Dwarf from K2 in a 41 day Orbit 2017AJ....153...15B
    Spectral energy distribution simulations of a possible ring structure around the young, red brown dwarf G 196-3 B 2017MNRAS.464.1108Z
    K2-99: a subgiant hosting a transiting warm Jupiter in an eccentric orbit and a long-period companion 2017MNRAS.464.2708S
    Primeval very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs - I. Six new L subdwarfs, classification and atmospheric properties 2017MNRAS.464.3040Z
    First gravitational-wave burst GW150914: MASTER optical follow-up observations 2017MNRAS.465.3656L
    Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) 2015JATIS...1a4003R
    The EChO science case 2015ExA....40..329T
    An eclipsing double-line spectroscopic binary at the stellar/substellar boundary in the Upper Scorpius OB association 2015A&A...584A.128L
    Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission⋆. XXVIII. CoRoT-33b, an object in the brown dwarf desert with 2:3 commensurability with its host star 2015A&A...584A..13C
    HD 144548: A young triply eclipsing system in the Upper Scorpius OB association 2015A&A...584L...8A
    The K2-ESPRINT Project I: Discovery of the Disintegrating Rocky Planet K2-22b with a Cometary Head and Leading Tail 2015ApJ...812..112S
    Tracking Advanced Planetary Systems (TAPAS) with HARPS-N. II. Super Li-rich giant HD 107028 2015A&A...581A..94A
    VLT X-Shooter spectroscopy of the nearest brown dwarf binary 2015A&A...581A..73L
    Rotational modulation of the linear polarimetric variability of the cool dwarf TVLM 513-46546 2015A&A...580L..12M
    Constraints on the substellar companions in wide orbits around the Barnard's Star from CanariCam mid-infrared imaging 2015MNRAS.452.1677G
    WASP-14 b: transit timing analysis of 19 light curves 2015MNRAS.451.4139R

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