N. C. Santos, J. Gomes da Silva, C. Lovis, C. Melo
Abstract
The ever increasing level of precision achieved by present and future radial-velocity instruments is opening the way to the discovery of very low mass, long period planets (e.g. solar-system analogs). These systems will be detectable as low amplitude signals in radial-velocity (RV). However, an important obstacle to their detection may be the existence of stellar magnetic cycles with similar timescales. Here we present the results of a long term program to measure simultaneously radial-velocities and stellar activity indicators (CaII, Hα, HeI) for a sample of stars with known activity cycles. Our results suggest that all these stellar activity indexes can be used to trace the stellar magnetic cycle in solar-type stars. Further to this, we find clear indications that different parameters of the HARPS cross-correlation function (BIS, FWHM, and Contrast) are also sensitive to activity level variations. Finally, we show that though in a few cases slight correlations or anti-correlations between radialvelocity and the activity level of the star exist, their origin is still not clear. We can however conclude that for our targets (early-K dwarfs) we do not find evidence for radial-velocity variations induced by variations of the stellar magnetic cycle with amplitudes significantly above ∼1m/s.
Keywords
planetary systems – Stars: activity – Stars: fundamental parameters – Techniques: spectroscopic – Techniques: radial velocities – starspots
Notes
Based on observations collected at the La Silla Parana Observatory, ESO (Chile) with the HARPS spectrograph at the 3.6-m telescope (ESO runs ID 072.C-0096 073.D-0038 074.D-0131 075.D-0194 076.D-0130 078.D-0071 079.D-0075 080.D-0086 081.D-0065).
Tables 5 to 8, with the data used for Figs. 2, 3, and 8, are available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/511/A54
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Volume 511, Number of pages A54_1
2010 February
