We report results of a direct imaging survey for giant planets around 80 members of the beta Pic, TW Hya, TucanaHorologium, AB Dor, and Hercules-Lyra moving groups, observed as part of the Gemini/NICI Planet-Finding Campaign. For this sample, we obtained median contrasts of Delta H = 13.9 mag at 1 '' in combined CH4 narrowband ADI+ SDI mode and median contrasts of.H = 15.1 mag at 2 '' in H-band ADI mode. We found numerous (> 70) candidate companions in our survey images. Some of these candidates were rejected as common-proper motion companions using archival data; we reobserved with Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager (NICI) all other candidates that lay within 400 AU of the star and were not in dense stellar fields. The vast majority of candidate companions were confirmed as background objects from archival observations and/or dedicated NICI Campaign followup. Four co-moving companions of brown dwarf or stellar mass were discovered in this moving group sample: PZ Tel B (36 +/- 6M(Jup), 16.4 +/- 1.0 AU), CD-35 2722B (31 +/- 8M(Jup), 67 +/- 4 AU), HD 12894B (0.46 +/- 0.08M(circle dot), 15.7 +/- 1.0 AU), and BD+ 07 1919C (0.20 +/- 0.03M(circle dot), 12.5 +/- 1.4 AU). From a Bayesian analysis of the achieved H band ADI and ASDI contrasts, using power-law models of planet distributions and hot-start evolutionary models, we restrict the frequency of 1-20M(Jup) companions at semi-major axes from 10-150 AU to < 18% at a 95.4% confidence level using DUSTY models and to < 6% at a 95.4% using COND models. Our results strongly constrain the frequency of planets within semi-major axes of 50 AU as well. We restrict the frequency of 1-20M(Jup) companions at semi-major axes from 10-50 AU to < 21% at a 95.4% confidence level using DUSTY models and to < 7% at a 95.4% using COND models. This survey is the deepest search to date for giant planets around young moving group stars.

We have carried out high contrast imaging of 70 young, nearby B and A stars to search for brown dwarf and planetary companions as part of the Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign. Our survey represents the largest, deepest survey for planets around high-mass stars (approximate to 1.5-2.5 M-circle dot) conducted to date and includes the planet hosts beta Pic and Fomalhaut. We obtained follow-up astrometry of all candidate companions within 400 AU projected separation for stars in uncrowded fields and identified new low-mass companions to HD 1160 and HIP 79797. We have found that the previously known young brown dwarf companion to HIP 79797 is itself a tight (3 AU) binary, composed of brown dwarfs with masses 58(-20)(+21) M-Jup and 55(-19)(+20) M-Jup, making this system one of the rare substellar binaries in orbit around a star. Considering the contrast limits of our NICI data and the fact that we did not detect any planets, we use high-fidelity Monte Carlo simulations to show that fewer than 20% of 2 M-circle dot stars can have giant planets greater than 4 M-Jup between 59 and 460 AU at 95% confidence, and fewer than 10% of these stars can have a planet more massive than 10 M-Jup between 38 and 650 AU. Overall, we find that large-separation giant planets are not common around B and A stars: fewer than 10% of B and A stars can have an analog to the HR 8799 b (7 M-Jup, 68 AU) planet at 95% confidence. We also describe a new Bayesian technique for determining the ages of field B and A stars from photometry and theoretical isochrones. Our method produces more plausible ages for high-mass stars than previous age-dating techniques, which tend to underestimate stellar ages and their uncertainties.

We announce the discovery of a similar to 2 Jupiter-mass planet in an eccentric 11 yr orbit around the K7/M0 dwarf GJ 328. Our result is based on 10 years of radial velocity (RV) data from the Hobby-Eberly and Harlan J. Smith telescopes at McDonald Observatory, and from the Keck Telescope at Mauna Kea. Our analysis of GJ 328's magnetic activity via the Na I D features reveals a long-period stellar activity cycle, which creates an additional signal in the star's RV curve with amplitude 6-10 m s(-1). After correcting for this stellar RV contribution, we see that the orbit of the planet is more eccentric than suggested by the raw RV data. GJ 328b is currently the most massive, longest-period planet discovered around a low-mass dwarf.

Context. GJ 1214 is orbited by a transiting super-Earth-mass planet. It is a primary target for ongoing efforts to understand the emerging population of super-Earth-mass planets around M dwarfs, some of which are detected within the liquid water (habitable) zone of their host stars.

We report on the masses, sizes, and orbits of the planets orbiting 22 Kepler stars. There are 49 planet candidates around these stars, including 42 detected through transits and 7 revealed by precise Doppler measurements of the host stars. Based on an analysis of the Kepler brightness measurements, along with high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy, Doppler spectroscopy, and (for 11 stars) asteroseismology, we establish low false-positive probabilities (FPPs) for all of the transiting planets (41 of 42 have an FPP under 1%), and we constrain their sizes and masses. Most of the transiting planets are smaller than three times the size of Earth. For 16 planets, the Doppler signal was securely detected, providing a direct measurement of the planet's mass. For the other 26 planets we provide either marginal mass measurements or upper limits to their masses and densities; in many cases we can rule out a rocky composition. We identify six planets with densities above 5 g cm(-3), suggesting a mostly rocky interior for them. Indeed, the only planets that are compatible with a purely rocky composition are smaller than similar to 2 R-circle plus. Larger planets evidently contain a larger fraction of low-density material (H, He, and H2O).

We present the detection of five planets-Kepler-62b, c, d, e, and f-of size 1.31, 0.54, 1.95, 1.61 and 1.41 Earth radii (R-circle plus), orbiting a K2V star at periods of 5.7, 12.4, 18.2, 122.4, and 267.3 days, respectively. The outermost planets, Kepler-62e and -62f, are super-Earth-size (1.25 R-circle plus < planet radius <= 2.0 R-circle plus) planets in the habitable zone of their host star, respectively receiving 1.2 +/- 0.2 times and 0.41 +/- 0.05 times the solar flux at Earth's orbit. Theoretical models of Kepler-62e and -62f for a stellar age of similar to 7 billion years suggest that both planets could be solid, either with a rocky composition or composed of mostly solid water in their bulk.

A key test of the supernova triggering and injection hypothesis for the origin of the solar system's short-lived radioisotopes is to reproduce the inferred initial abundances of these isotopes. We present here the most detailed models to date of the shock wave triggering and injection process, where shock waves with varied properties strike fully three-dimensional, rotating, dense cloud cores. The models are calculated with the FLASH adaptive mesh hydrodynamics code. Three different outcomes can result: triggered collapse leading to fragmentation into a multiple protostar system; triggered collapse leading to a single protostar embedded in a protostellar disk; or failure to undergo dynamic collapse. Shock wave material is injected into the collapsing clouds through Rayleigh-Taylor fingers, resulting in initially inhomogeneous distributions in the protostars and protostellar disks. Cloud rotation about an axis aligned with the shock propagation direction does not increase the injection efficiency appreciably, as the shock parameters were chosen to be optimal for injection even in the absence of rotation. For a shock wave from a core-collapse supernova, the dilution factors for supernova material are in the range of similar to 10(-4) to similar to 3 x 10(-4), in agreement with recent laboratory estimates of the required amount of dilution for Fe-60 and Al-26. We conclude that a type II supernova remains as a promising candidate for synthesizing the solar system's short-lived radioisotopes shortly before their injection into the presolar cloud core by the supernova's remnant shock wave.

We present the results of a large suite of three-dimensional models of the collapse of magnetic molecular cloud cores using the adaptive mesh refinement code Enzo2.2 in the ideal magnetohydrodynamics approximation. The cloud cores are initially either prolate or oblate, centrally condensed clouds with masses of 1.73 or 2.73 Mo, respectively. The radial density profiles are Gaussian, with central densities 20 times higher than boundary densities. A barotropic equation of state is used to represent the transition from low density isothermal phases, to high density optically thick phases. The initial magnetic field strength ranges from 6.3 to 100 p,G, corresponding to clouds that are strongly to marginally supercritical, respectively, in terms of the mass to magnetic flux ratio. The magnetic field is initially uniform and aligned with the clouds' rotation axes, with initial ratios of rotational to gravitational energy ranging from 10-4 to 0.1. Two significantly different outcomes for collapse result: (1) formation of single protostars with spiral arms, and (2) fragmentation into multiple protostar systems. The transition between these two outcomes depends primarily on the initial magnetic field strength, with fragmentation occurring for mass to flux ratios greater than about 14 times the critical ratio for prolate clouds. Oblate clouds typically fragment into several times more clumps than prolate clouds. Multiple, rather than binary, system formation is the general rule in either case, suggesting that binary stars are primarily the result of the orbital dissolution of multiple protostar systems.

One of the primary goals of exoplanet science is to find and characterize habitable planets, and direct imaging will play a key role in this effort. Though imaging a true Earth analog is likely out of reach from the ground, the coming generation of giant telescopes will find and characterize many planets in and near the habitable zones (HZs) of nearby stars. Radial velocity and transit searches indicate that such planets are common, but imaging them will require achieving extreme contrasts at very small angular separations, posing many challenges for adaptive optics (AO) system design. Giant planets in the HZ may even be within reach with the latest generation of high-contrast imagers for a handful of very nearby stars. Here we will review the definition of the HZ, and the characteristics of detectable planets there. We then review some of the ways that direct imaging in the HZ will be different from the typical exoplanet imaging survey today. Finally, we present preliminary results from our observations of the HZ of alpha Centauri A with the Magellan AO system's VisAO and Clio2 cameras.

A long-standing problem in the collisional accretion of terrestrial planets is the possible loss of m-size bodies through their inward migration onto the protostar as a result of gas drag forces. Such inward migration can be halted, and indeed even reversed, in a protoplanetary disk with local pressure maxima, such as marginally gravitationally unstable (MGU) phases of evolution, e.g., FU Orionis events. Results are presented for a suite of three-dimensional models of MGU disks extending from 1 to 10 AU and containing solid particles with sizes of 1 cm, 10 cm, 1 m, or 10 m, subject to disk gas drag and gravitational forces. These hydrodynamical models show that over disk evolution time scales of similar to 6 x 10(3) years or longer, during which over half the gaseous disk mass is accreted by the protostar, very few 1 and 10 m bodies are lost through inward migration: most bodies survive and orbit stably in the outer disk. A greater fraction of 1 and 10 cm particles are lost to the central protostar during these time periods, as such particles are more closely tied to the disk gas accreting onto the protostar, but even in these cases, a significant fraction survive and undergo transport from the hot inner disk to the cold outer disk, perhaps explaining the presence of small refractory particles in Comet Wild 2. Evidently MGU disk phases offer a means to overcome the m-sized migration barrier to collisional accumulation.