AMNH SALT SCIENCE

Ashley Pagnotta (very old novae), Ben Oppenheimer (chemistry of hot Jupiter atmosphere), MS + Dave Zurek (Magellanic dwarf novae) Adric Reidel (young red dwarfs)Jackie Faherty (brown dwarf rotations)

June 6/2014

Pagnotta:Eventually, we will produce long term light curves for all known galactic classical novae, such as this one for V603 Aquilae. Our light curves will be anchored by modern magnitudes from SALT and other sources.

BV Cen is a U Gem/SS Cyg-type dwarf nova that has shown an increase in the time between its DN outbursts over the past half century, indicating a decrease in the accretion rate and possible nova eruption in its past.

Plummer & Horn (2009)

We used SALTICAM on BV Cen to obtain a total of 30 minutes of integration time using the Hα filter to search for a nova shell; none present.

2014-1-AMNH-002

BV Cen

Additionally, we continue our survey of modern magnitudes of post-nova systems, searching for evidence of secular change that may confirm or challenge the hibernation theory, for example with V604 Aquilae.

2014-1-AMNH-003

B g’ r’

Shara and ZurekDwarf Novae and Old Novae in the LMC – 9 epochs over 2 months u and g filters

sdss gsdss u

Note Gradients across images

~40 IMAGES IN EACH FILTER ARE DITHERTEDCO-ADD IMAGES, BUTHIGH DATA VALUES (i.e. stars) REJECTED

sdss u sdss g

FLATTENED, COSMIC-RAY CLEANED, COSMETICALLY CLEANED, ALIGNED, CO-ADDED IMAGES

u ~g ~25… deep enough to detect quiescent cataclysmic variables

Large amplitude blue variables seen between epochs

~1% of the stars are very blue (u-g < 0)The most variable are cataclysmic binaries

sdss u sdss u-g

Oppenheimer: Measurement of Wasp 43b Transit Spectrum

• The hottest transiting exoplanet• Period = 19.52 hours• M =~ 2 x Jupiter R ~ R(Jupiter) semimajor axis = 0.014 AU• Mstar = 0.58 Msun• Goal : Transmission spectrum of the planet’s atmosphere• INITIAL Method: {Star alone} - {Star minus Planet} =Planet• i.e. Primary transit spectrum minus secondary transit spectrum =PLANET ATMOSPHERE SPECTRUM• ULTIMATE GOAL: SPECTROPOLARIMETRY AROUND THE ORBIT

• SALT RSS longslit pg0900 grating data on 1-15 and 2-06 of 2014 • in transit and out of transit 1200 seconds exposure • In process of reducing above data.

1.15.14 22:49

1.15.14 22:14

Observations: 1 (300.2s) 22:42:23 - 22:47:23 5 (300.2s) 23:03:41 - 23:08:41 2 (300.2s) 22:47:43 - 22:52:43 6 (300.2s) 23:09:00 - 23:14:00 3 (300.2s) 22:53:02 - 22:58:02 7 (300.2s) 23:14:20 - 23:19:20 4 (300.2s) 22:58:21 - 23:03:21 8 (300.2s) 23:19:39 - 23:24:39

343332313029

2827

2.06.14 21:22

2.06.14 21:57

Observations: 1 (300.2s) 21:42:51 - 21:47:51 2 (300.2s) 21:48:10 - 21:53:103 (300.2s) 21:53:30 - 21:58:304 (300.2s) 21:58:50 - 22:03:50

12 13

14 15

Un-calibrated Results

Wasp 43 b in transit spectra

Wasp 43b out of transit spectra

Difference Spectrum

Next Steps

• Apply instrument function to the data• Identify possible lines in the spectrum…NaI 5889 Angstroms• Or evidence of broadband scattering and cloud cover

Expect ~2-3 AMNH papers in the coming 6 months