Signs of accretion in the white dwarf + brown dwarf binary NLTT5306 (2019)
Journal Article
Maxted. (2019). Signs of accretion in the white dwarf + brown dwarf binary NLTT5306. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2566 - 2574. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz127

We present new XSHOOTER spectra of NLTT5306, a 0.44 ± 0.04 M? white dwarf in a short period (101 min) binary system with a brown dwarf companion that is likely to have previously undergone common envelope evolution. We have confirmed the presence of... Read More about Signs of accretion in the white dwarf + brown dwarf binary NLTT5306.

Disentangling the spatial substructure of Cygnus OB2 from Gaia DR2 (2019)
Journal Article
Wright. (2019). Disentangling the spatial substructure of Cygnus OB2 from Gaia DR2. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1838 -1842. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz117

For the first time, we have explored the spatial substructure of the Cygnus OB2 association using parallaxes from the recent second Gaia data release. We find significant line-of-sight substructure within the association, which we quantify using a pa... Read More about Disentangling the spatial substructure of Cygnus OB2 from Gaia DR2.

Fundamental parameters of subgiant stars in detached eclipsing binary systems (2019)
Thesis
Evans, J. A. Fundamental parameters of subgiant stars in detached eclipsing binary systems. (Thesis). Keele University. https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/413063

Detailed studies of stars in long-period, detached eclipsing binary systems remain one of the best ways to test stellar evolutionary models. With so many detections of planets outside of the solar system, research has turned to the characterisation o... Read More about Fundamental parameters of subgiant stars in detached eclipsing binary systems.

Fundamental properties of M-dwarfs in eclipsing binary star systems (2019)
Thesis
Gill, S. Fundamental properties of M-dwarfs in eclipsing binary star systems. (Thesis). Keele University. https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/413089

The absolute parameters of M-dwarfs in eclipsing binary systems provide important tests for evolutionary models. Those that have been measured reveal significant discrepancies with evolutionary models. There are two problems with M-dwarfs: 1. M-dwarf... Read More about Fundamental properties of M-dwarfs in eclipsing binary star systems.

Follow-up observations and characterisation of transiting hot Jupiter exoplanets (2019)
Thesis
Clark, B. J. M. Follow-up observations and characterisation of transiting hot Jupiter exoplanets. (Thesis). Keele University. https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/413092

The discovery of the first hot Jupiter exoplanet more than twenty years ago raised many questions. Such large, hot planets were not predicted to exist so close to their host star. Since then, more than 125 hot Jupiters have been discovered (to date),... Read More about Follow-up observations and characterisation of transiting hot Jupiter exoplanets.

WASP-190b: Tomographic discovery of a transiting hot Jupiter (2019)
Journal Article
Y. Temple, L., Hellier, C., Almleaky, Y., Anderson, D., Bouchy, F., Brown, D., Burdanov, A., Collier Cameron, A., Delrez, L., Gillon, M., Jehin, E., Lendl, M., Maxted, P., Murray, C., Nielsen, L., Pepe, F., Pollacco, D., Queloz, D., Ségransan, D., Smalley, B., …West, R. (2019). WASP-190b: Tomographic discovery of a transiting hot Jupiter. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 157(4), Article 141. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab095a

We report the discovery of WASP-190b, an exoplanet on a 5.37 day orbit around a mildly evolved F6 IV-V star with V = 11.7,  = 6400 ± 100 K, M* = 1.35 ± 0.05 M?, and R* = 1.6 ± 0.1 R?. The planet has a radius of RP = 1.15 ± 0.09 RJup and a mass of MP ... Read More about WASP-190b: Tomographic discovery of a transiting hot Jupiter.

From evolved stars to the evolution of IC 1613 (2019)
Journal Article
Van Loon. (2019). From evolved stars to the evolution of IC 1613. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 4751 -4765. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty3450

IC 1613 is a Local Group dwarf irregular galaxy at a distance of 750 kpc. In this work, we present an analysis of the star formation history (SFH) of a field of ~200 arcmin2 in the central part of the galaxy. To this aim, we use a novel method based... Read More about From evolved stars to the evolution of IC 1613.

Fundamental properties of the pre-main sequence eclipsing stars of MML 53 and the mass of the tertiary (2019)
Journal Article
Hellier. (2019). Fundamental properties of the pre-main sequence eclipsing stars of MML 53 and the mass of the tertiary. Astronomy and Astrophysics, https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201833299

We present the most comprehensive analysis to date of the Upper Centaurus Lupus eclipsing binary MML 53 (with PEB = 2.097892 d), and for the first time, confirm the bound-nature of the third star (in a P3 ~ 9 yr orbit) by constraining its mass dynami... Read More about Fundamental properties of the pre-main sequence eclipsing stars of MML 53 and the mass of the tertiary.

AIMS – a new tool for stellar parameter determinations using asteroseismic constraints (2019)
Journal Article
(2019). AIMS – a new tool for stellar parameter determinations using asteroseismic constraints. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 771-786. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz031

A key aspect in the determination of stellar properties is the comparison of observational constraints with predictions from stellar models. Asteroseismic Inference on a Massive Scale (AIMS) is an open source code that uses Bayesian statistics and a... Read More about AIMS – a new tool for stellar parameter determinations using asteroseismic constraints.

Fundamental properties of the pre-main sequence eclipsing stars of MML 53 and the mass of the tertiary (2019)
Journal Article
Hellier. (2019). Fundamental properties of the pre-main sequence eclipsing stars of MML 53 and the mass of the tertiary. Astronomy & Astrophysics, https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201733299

We present the most comprehensive analysis to date of the Upper Centaurus Lupus eclipsing binary MML 53 (with P-EB = 2.097892 d), and for the first time, confirm the bound-nature of the third star (in a P-3 similar to 9 yr orbit) by constraining its... Read More about Fundamental properties of the pre-main sequence eclipsing stars of MML 53 and the mass of the tertiary.

A deep X-ray view of the bare AGN Ark 120 - V. Spin determination from disc-Comptonisation efficiency method (2019)
Journal Article
(2019). A deep X-ray view of the bare AGN Ark 120 - V. Spin determination from disc-Comptonisation efficiency method. Astronomy and Astrophysics, A11 - A11. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201834448

Context
The spin of supermassive black holes (SMBH) in active galactic nuclei (AGN) can be determined from spectral signature(s) of relativistic reflection such as the X-ray iron Ka line profile, but this can be rather uncertain when the line of sig... Read More about A deep X-ray view of the bare AGN Ark 120 - V. Spin determination from disc-Comptonisation efficiency method.

A deep X-ray view of the bare AGN Ark 120 - VI. Geometry of the hot corona from spectroscopic and polarization signatures (2019)
Journal Article
(2019). A deep X-ray view of the bare AGN Ark 120 - VI. Geometry of the hot corona from spectroscopic and polarization signatures. Astronomy and Astrophysics, A12 -A12. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201834454

Context. The spectral shape of the hard X-ray continuum of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) can be ascribed to inverse Compton scattering of optical/UV seed photons from the accretion disc by a hot corona of electrons. This physical process produces a po... Read More about A deep X-ray view of the bare AGN Ark 120 - VI. Geometry of the hot corona from spectroscopic and polarization signatures.

Testing Systematics of Gaia DR2 Parallaxes with Empirical Surface Brightness: Color Relations Applied to Eclipsing Binaries (2019)
Journal Article
Maxted. (2019). Testing Systematics of Gaia DR2 Parallaxes with Empirical Surface Brightness: Color Relations Applied to Eclipsing Binaries. Astrophysical Journal, https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aafbed

Using a sample of 81 galactic, detached eclipsing binary stars we investigated the global zero-point shift of their parallaxes with the Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) parallaxes. The stars in the sample lay in a distance range of 0.04–2 kpc from the Sun.... Read More about Testing Systematics of Gaia DR2 Parallaxes with Empirical Surface Brightness: Color Relations Applied to Eclipsing Binaries.

Spitzer Microlensing Parallax for OGLE-2017-BLG-0896 Reveals a Counter-rotating Low-mass Brown Dwarf (2019)
Journal Article
Shvartzvald, Y., Yee, J. C., Skowron, J., Lee, C.-U., Udalski, A., Calchi Novati, S., Bozza, V., Beichman, C. A., Bryden, G., Carey, S., Gaudi, B. S., Henderson, C. B., Zhu, W., Bachelet, E., Bolt, G., Christie, G., Maoz, D., Natusch, T., Pogge, R. W., Street, R. A., …Southworth, J. (2019). Spitzer Microlensing Parallax for OGLE-2017-BLG-0896 Reveals a Counter-rotating Low-mass Brown Dwarf. Astronomical Journal, 157(3), Article 106. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aafe12

The kinematics of isolated brown dwarfs in the Galaxy, beyond the solar neighborhood, is virtually unknown. Microlensing has the potential to probe this hidden population, as it can measure both the mass and five of the six phase-space coordinates (a... Read More about Spitzer Microlensing Parallax for OGLE-2017-BLG-0896 Reveals a Counter-rotating Low-mass Brown Dwarf.

SB 796: a high-velocity RRc star (2019)
Journal Article
Maxted. (2019). SB 796: a high-velocity RRc star. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 5327-5335. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty2828

We report here on a detailed study of a c-type RR Lyrae variable (RRc variable), SB 796, serendipitously discovered in a search of the WASP public data for stars that display large photometric periodic modulation. SB 796 displays a period of P = 0.26... Read More about SB 796: a high-velocity RRc star.

Dependence of convective boundary mixing on boundary properties and turbulence strength (2019)
Journal Article
Cristini, A., Hirschi, R., Meakin, C., Arnett, D., Georgy, C., & Walkington, I. (2019). Dependence of convective boundary mixing on boundary properties and turbulence strength. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 484(4), 4645 - 4664. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz312

Convective boundary mixing is one of the major uncertainties in stellar evolution. In order to study its dependence on boundary properties and turbulence strength in a controlled way, we computed a series of 3D hydrodynamical simulations of stellar c... Read More about Dependence of convective boundary mixing on boundary properties and turbulence strength.

OGLE-2014-BLG-1186: gravitational microlensing providing evidence for a planet orbiting the foreground star or for a close binary source? (2019)
Journal Article
Dominik, M., Bachelet, E., Bozza, V., Street, R. A., Han, C., Hundertmark, M., Udalski, A., Bramich, D. M., Alsubai, K. A., Calchi Novati, S., Ciceri, S., D’Ago, G., Figuera Jaimes, R., Haugbølle, T., Hinse, T. C., Horne, K., Jørgensen, U. G., Juncher, D., Kains, N., Korhonen, H., …Kozłowski, S. (2019). OGLE-2014-BLG-1186: gravitational microlensing providing evidence for a planet orbiting the foreground star or for a close binary source?. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 484(4), 5608 - 5632. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz306

Discussing the particularly long gravitational microlensing event OGLE-2014-BLG-1186 with a time-scale tE ~ 300 d, we present a methodology for identifying the nature of localised deviations from single-lens point-source light curves, which ensures t... Read More about OGLE-2014-BLG-1186: gravitational microlensing providing evidence for a planet orbiting the foreground star or for a close binary source?.

The VMC Survey XXXIII. The tip of the red giant branch in the Magellanic Clouds (2019)
Journal Article
Van Loon. (2019). The VMC Survey XXXIII. The tip of the red giant branch in the Magellanic Clouds. Astronomy & Astrophysics, https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201833904

In this paper JKs-band data from the VISTA Magellanic Cloud (VMC) survey are used to investigate the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) as a distance indicator. A linear fit to recent theoretical models is used as the basis for the absolute calibrati... Read More about The VMC Survey XXXIII. The tip of the red giant branch in the Magellanic Clouds.

Identification of AGN in the XMM-Newton X-ray survey of the SMC (2019)
Journal Article
Maitra, C., Haberl, F., Ivanov, V. D., Cioni, M. L., & Van Loon, J. T. (2019). Identification of AGN in the XMM-Newton X-ray survey of the SMC. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 622, Article A29. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201833663

Context
Finding Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) behind the Magellanic Clouds (MCs) is difficult because of the high stellar density in these fields. Although the first AGN behind the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) were reported in the 1980s, it is only r... Read More about Identification of AGN in the XMM-Newton X-ray survey of the SMC.

The Dynamics, Structure, and Fate of a Young Cluster during Gas Dispersal: Hectoschelle, Chandra, Spitzer, and Gaia Observations of Cep OB3b (2019)
Journal Article
(2019). The Dynamics, Structure, and Fate of a Young Cluster during Gas Dispersal: Hectoschelle, Chandra, Spitzer, and Gaia Observations of Cep OB3b. Astrophysical Journal, https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aaf4c1

We present a study of the kinematics and structure of the Cep OB3b cluster based on new spectra obtained with the Hectoschelle spectrograph on the MMT and data from Spitzer, Chandra, and Gaia. At a distance of 819 +/- 16 pc, Cep OB3b is one of the cl... Read More about The Dynamics, Structure, and Fate of a Young Cluster during Gas Dispersal: Hectoschelle, Chandra, Spitzer, and Gaia Observations of Cep OB3b.