Discovery of a Probable 4 − 5 Jupiter-Mass Exoplanet to HD 95086 by Direct-Imaging
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Discovery of a probable 4 − 5 Jupiter-mass exoplanet to HD 95086 by direct-imaging J. Rameau1, G. Chauvin1, A.-M. Lagrange1, A. Boccaletti2, S. P. Quanz3, M. Bonnefoy4, J. H. Girard 5, P. Delorme1, S. Desidera6, H. Klahr4, C. Mordasini 4, C. Dumas5, M. Bonavita6, T. Meshkat7, V. Bailey8, and M. Kenworthy7 ABSTRACT Direct imaging has just started the inventory of the population of gas giant planets on wide- orbits around young stars in the solar neighborhood. Following this approach, we carried out a deep imaging survey in the near-infrared using VLT/NaCo to search for substellar companions. We report here the discovery in L ' (3:8 µm) images of a probable companion orbiting at 56 AU the young (10 − 17 Myr), dusty, and early-type (A8) star HD 95086. This discovery is based on observations with more than a year-time-lapse. Our first epoch clearly revealed the source at ' 10 σ while our second epoch lacked good observing conditions hence yielding a ' 3 σ detection. Various tests were thus made to rule out possible artifacts. This recovery is consistent with the signal at the first epoch but requires cleaner confirmation. Nevertheless, our astrometric precision suggests the companion to be comoving with the star, with a 3 σ confidence level. The planetary nature of the source is reinforced by a non-detection in Ks-band (2:18 µm) images according to its possible extremely red Ks - L ' color. Conversely, background contamination is rejected with good confidence level. The luminosity yields a predicted mass of about 4 − 5 MJup (at 10 − 17 Myr) using "hot-start" evolutionary models, making HD 95086 b the exoplanet with the lowest mass ever imaged around a star. Subject headings: planets and satellites: detection | stars: individual (HD 95086) | stars: massive | instrumentation: adaptive optics 1. Introduction Submitted to ApJL on 2013, May, 8th ; Accepted on 2013, May, 24th Direct imaging is challenging to search for orbit- Electronic adress: [email protected] ing giant planets due to the high planet-star con- Based on observations collected at the European Or- trast and small angular separation explored. As a ganisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, Chile, under programs number 087.C-0292, result, very few planetary-mass companions have 088.C.0085, 090.C-0538, 090.C-0698, and 090.C-0728. been detected by direct imaging, initially at rela- 1UJF-Grenoble 1 / CNRS-INSU, Institut de tively large separations (≥ 100 AU) around solar- Plan´etologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) type to low-mass stars (e.g., Chauvin et al. 2005, UMR 5274, Grenoble, F-38041, France B´ejaret al. 2008, Lafreni`ereet al. 2008, and Ire- 2LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, University Pierre et Marie Curie Paris 6 and University Denis Diderot land et al. 2011). They may have a relatively high Paris 7, 5 place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon, France mass-ratio (q ∼ 0:2−0:02) suggesting a stellar-like 3Institute for Astronomy, ETH Zurich, Wolfgang-Pauli- Strasse 27, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland dell' Osservatorio 5, 35122, Padova, Italy 4 Max Planck Instiute f¨urAstronomy, K¨onigsthul 17, D- 7Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9513, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands 5 European Southern Observatory, Casilla 19001, Santi- 8Steward Observatory, Department of Astronomy, Uni- ago 19, Chile versity of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 6INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Vicolo 85721-0065, USA 1 formation origin. More recently, the discoveries of other nearby associations). Systematic differences giant planets around the young and dusty early- between these two fully independent methods may type stars HR 8799 (Marois et al. 2008, 2010) and be responsible for the discrepancy. Nonetheless, β Pictoris (Lagrange et al. 2010) at smaller phys- the full assessment of the age is beyond the scope ical separations (≤ 70 AU) and with lower mass- of this paper and adopting 10 or 17 Myr has only ratio (q ∼ 0:002) suggested rather a formation a limited impact in the following results. within the circumstellar disk either by core accre- Houk (1975) proposed HD 95086 to have a class tion (Pollack et al. 1996) or gravitational insta- III luminosity and a A8 spectral-type with a mass bility (Cameron 1978). Fomalhaut b (Kalas et al. of ' 1:6 M . However, its good-quality trigono- 2008) is a peculiar case since its photometry seems metric parallax and thus derived luminosity and to be contaminated by reflected light from the dust effective temperature undoubtedly place it close (Currie et al. 2012), making the precise determina- to zero-age main sequence stars of LCC and thus tion of its mass more uncertain. Also, the (proto-) reject the super-giant phase. planet candidates around LkCa 15 (Kraus & Ire- Another interesting property of HD 95086 is that land 2012) and HD 100546 (Quanz et al. 2013) still observations in the mm (Nilsson et al. 2010) and in require confirmations. the mid-to-far infrared (Rizzuto et al. 2012, Chen Consequently, every single discovery has a tremen- et al. 2012) revealed a large dust-to-star luminos- −3 dous impact on the understanding of the forma- ity ratio (Ld=L? = 10 ), indicating the presence tion, the dynamical evolution, and the physics of of a so far unresolved debris disk. giant planets. Finally, Kouwenhoven et al. (2005) observed Although very few directly imaged giant plan- HD 95086 with adaptive-optics and identified a ets, still very massive, have been reported in the background star with a separation of 4:87 00 and literature, so far only one (maybe HR 8799 b, e.g., position angle of 316 deg to the star (based on its Marois et al. 2010), with mass lower than 7 MJup, K magnitude). has been imaged around a star. We report here the 2.2. Observations discovery of a probable 4 − 5 MJup giant planet around HD 95086, the exoplanet with the lowest HD 95086 was observed with VLT/NaCo (Lenzen mass ever imaged around a star. If the comoving et al. 2003, Rousset et al. 2003) in thermal infrared status of the companion is confirmed, this giant with angular differential imaging (ADI Marois et planet may become a benchmark for physical stud- al. 2006) mode as part of our direct-imaging sur- ies of young giant planets but also for formation vey of young, dusty, and early-type stars (Rameau and evolution theories of planetary systems. et al. 2013). NaCo was configured for the L ' fil- ter (λ0 = 3:8 µm, ∆λ = 0:62 µm) with the L27 2. Observations and data reduction camera in service mode for observations in 2012, January. The source was dithered within the in- 2.1. The star HD 95086 strument field-of-view (' 14 00 × 14 00) in order HD 95086 was identified as an early-type mem- to properly estimate and remove the background ber of the Lower Centaurus Crux (LCC) asso- contribution. An observing sequence was made ciation by de Zeeuw et al. (1999) and also by up of a first short set of unsaturated exposures to Madsen et al. (2002). The membership was estab- serve as calibrations for the point-spread function lished on the grounds that the star shares a simi- and for the relative photometry and astrometry. lar velocity vector in the galactic framework with The sequence was followed by a one hour set of other LCC members. HD 95086 has a distance of deep science-observations. 90:4 ± 3:4 pc (van Leeuwen 2007), which is ap- In 2013, follow-up observations were done and proximately the mean distance of the LCC associ- included two runs: one in February (back-up star, ation. About the age of the association, Mamajek visitor mode, very bad conditions), with the Ks et al. (2002) followed by Pecaut et al. (2012) de- filter (λ0 = 2:18 µm, ∆λ = 0:35 µm) and the S13 rived 17±2 Myr (based on isochrone fitting) while camera (platescale ' 13:25 mas/pixel), and one in Song et al. (2012) derived ' 10 Myr (by compari- March at L ' with the L27 camera in service mode. son with Lithium equivalent width of members of Table 1 summarizes the observing log for each run. 2 Table 1: Observing log of HD 95086 with VLT/NaCo. a a a a Type Date Cam./Filter DIT × NDIT Nexp π-start/end hAirmassi hFWHMi hτ0i hEci (s) (deg) (00) (ms) (%) θ1 Ori C 2011/12/18 L27/L ' 0.2 × 150 6 {/{ 1.11 0.78 7.4 45.9 PSF 2012/01/11 L27/L '+ND 0.2 × 80 10 -9.32/-8.19 1.39 0.75 3.6 61.1 Deep 2012/01/11 L27/L ' 0.2 × 100 156 -7.59/16.96 1.39 0.76 3.5 58.2 θ1 Ori C 2012/02/10 L27/L ' 0.2 × 195 10 {/{ 1.06 0.50 6.0 37.1 PSF 2013/02/14 S13/Ks 0.2 × 100 4 -45.18/-44.72 1.52 1.08 1.1 54.5 Deep 2013/02/14 S13/Ks 0.5 × 100 88 -44.14/-14.68 1.45 1.08 1.1 22.4 θ1 Ori C 2013/03/24 L27/L ' 0.2 × 50 10 {/{ 1.16 1.56 5.9 52.1 Deep 2013/03/14 L27/L ' 0.2 × 100 162 3.20/28.18 1.41 1.77 1.0 37.2 PSF 2013/03/14 L27/L '+ND 0.2 ×80 10 29.61/30.68 1.44 1.65 0.9 32.1 Note.|"ND" refers to the NaCo ND Long filter (transmission of ' 1:79 %), "PSF" (point-spread function) for unsaturated exposures, "Deep" to deep science observations, "DIT" to exposure time, and π to the parallactic angle at start and end of observations.