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FURTHER EVIDENCE of the PLANETARY NATURE of HD 95086 B from GEMINI/NICI H-BAND DATA

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FURTHER EVIDENCE of the PLANETARY NATURE of HD 95086 B from GEMINI/NICI H-BAND DATA The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 775:L40 (5pp), 2013 October 1 doi:10.1088/2041-8205/775/2/L40 C 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. FURTHER EVIDENCE OF THE PLANETARY NATURE OF HD 95086 b FROM GEMINI/NICI H-BAND DATA T. Meshkat1, V. Bailey2, J. Rameau3, M. Bonnefoy4, A. Boccaletti5, E. E. Mamajek6, M. Kenworthy1, G. Chauvin3, A.-M. Lagrange3,K.Y.L.Su2, and T. Currie7 1 Sterrewacht Leiden, P.O. Box 9513, Niels Bohrweg 2, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands 2 Steward Observatory, Department of Astronomy, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065, USA 3 UJF-Grenoble 1/CNRS-INSU, Institut de Planetologie´ et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) UMR 5274, Grenoble, F-38041, France 4 Max Planck Institute fur¨ Astronomy, Konigsthul¨ 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany 5 LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, University Pierre et Marie Curie Paris 6 and University Denis Diderot Paris 7, 5 place Jules Janssen, F-92195 Meudon, France 6 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0171, USA 7 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George St., Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A1, Canada Received 2013 July 10; accepted 2013 August 16; published 2013 September 18 ABSTRACT We present our analysis of the Gemini/NICI H-band data of HD 95086, following the discovery of the planet HD 95086 b in L.TheH-band data reach a contrast of 12.7 mag relative to the host star at 5σ levels in the location of HD 95086 b, and no point source is found. Our non-detection and H − L color limit rules out the possibility that the object is a foreground L/T dwarf and that, if it is bound to HD 95086, it is a genuine planetary mass object. We estimate a new pre-main-sequence isochronal age for HD 95086 of 17 ± 4 Myr, which is commensurate with previous mean age estimates for the Lower Cen-Crux subgroup. Adopting an age of 17 Myr, the color limit is inconsistent with the COND model, marginally consistent with the BT-SETTL model, and consistent with the DUSTY model. Key words: planets and satellites: detection – stars: individual (HD 95086) Online-only material: color figure 1. INTRODUCTION about dust settling in low-gravity atmospheres. The methane bands seen in mature brown-dwarfs at a similar temperature Rameau et al. (2013) reported the probable detection of a 4 as HD 95086 b might also be reduced (or lacking) due to the to 5 Jupiter mass companion to HD 95086 lying at a projected effect of reduced surface gravity, which in turn triggers non- ± separation of 56 AU. The host is a young (17 4 Myr; see equilibrium chemistry of CO/CH4 (Hubeny & Burrows 2007). Section 4.1) A8 type star. The large infrared excess (Chen et al. Low-resolution spectroscopy is highly challenging with the 2012) suggests that the star is harboring a debris disk, as yet present instrumentation given the contrast and faintness of unresolved. HD 95086 b (Vigan et al. 2012). Broad band photometry is The discovery at the L band (3.8 μm), using the angular currently the only way to derive of the color of the companion differential imaging technique (ADI; Marois et al. 2006), was a and constrain its atmospheric properties. We examine our 9σ detection in the first epoch. The second epoch suffered from H-band NICI data9 taken in 2012, the same epoch as the poor observing conditions, resulting in a 3σ re-detection of the L discovery image. We do not detect the companion in our planet. The astrometric precision allowed for the rejection of H-band data, allowing us to derive a lower limit to the H − L a background object with nearly 3σ probability. Rameau et al. color and reject a foreground contamination hypothesis. (2013) also carried out Ks (2.18 μm) observations that also In Sections 2 and 3, we describe our observations and our suffered from bad observing conditions. This resulted in low Ks derived upper H-band limit. In Section 4, we discuss the age as sensitivity and a non-detection. These observations were used to determined by isochrone fitting and we show that the very red conclude that the detection at L was likely inconsistent with a color rejects the foreground contamination hypothesis. background star. Such a non-detection rejected the background hypothesis and suggested a red object with Ks− L > 1.2 mag. 2. OBSERVATIONS With a predicted temperature of Teff 1000 K (compared to the 1600–1700 K of β Pic b, and 800–1100 K for HR8799 2.1. Data bcde; Bonnefoy et al. 2013;Currieetal.2011;Skemeretal. Observations of HD 95086 were taken on UT 2012 March 19, 2012), a giant planet will have an atmosphere close to the L-T 26, and 30 using the NICI camera (Toomey & Ftaclas 2003)on spectral transition, where the effect of reduced surface gravity Gemini South in the H-filter (λ = 1.65 μm and Δλ = 0.29 μm) as (characteristic of young and low-mass companions) is expected part of a survey looking for gas giant planets around young stars to dramatically affect the balance between dust formation with IR excesses (PI: V. Bailey). The camera was configured and settling in the atmosphere (Stephens et al. 2009). If the with the broad H band filter and the 0.32 coronagraphic mask. companion is real, it would be a benchmark for spectroscopic The integration times for individual science frames are 55.0 s studies of low-mass giant planets since it would be one of the (5 coadded readouts of 11.0 s each). The details of the observing lightest directly imaged planets,8 and key to testing predictions log for these data is listed in Table 1. Five percent of the frames 8 HR8799 b (Marois et al. 2008) might be as light as HD 95086 b but its low are rejected per night due to poor alignment of the central star mass estimate was derived from dynamical instability rather than from under the mask. The instrument was configured in telescope atmospheric models which give higher mass, and Fomalhaut b might be a dwarf planet and only the reflecting dust is detected (Kalas et al. 2008; Currie et al. 2012). 9 Taken as part of a survey of young stars with debris disks (PI: V. Bailey). 1 The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 775:L40 (5pp), 2013 October 1 Meshkat et al. Table 1 Observing Log for NICI H-band 2012 Data Date (UT) 2012 Mar 19 2012 Mar 26 2012 Mar 30 Total integration time (s) 2695 3520 3520 Frames observed 49 64 64 Frames rejected 5 4 4 On-sky rotation (◦) 18.24 25.13 25.19 Parallactic angle (◦) 18.89/37.13 342.14/07.27 347.71/12.90 DIM seeing () 0.6 0.6 0.6 pupil tracking mode to keep the point spread function (PSF) structure from the telescope optics fixed with respect to the orientation of the detector. As a consequence, the position angle (P.A.) of the sky on the detector underwent rotation of 19◦,25◦, and 25◦ on each of the nights, respectively. 2.2. NICI Data Reduction Calibration data consists of dark frames with the same integration time and flats from the nights of March 19 and 26. The flat field images were dark-subtracted, and all individual flat field images were normalized by their median and combined Figure 1. Upper left: the combined NICI H-band image reduced with PCA with together with a clipped mean to form a final normalized flat field a white circle at the expected location of the companion. The three other images image. have a fake companion injected into the raw data at the location of the expected The dark frames were subtracted from the science frames and planet. The contrast of the artificial companions are 11.6 mag for the T dwarf, then the dark-subtracted science frames were divided by the 12.0 mag for the COND model, and 12.5 mag for the BT-SETTL model. normalized flat field frame. A bad pixel mask was constructed from pixels in the flat field frame that were greater than 1.2 or less 3. IMAGE PROCESSING than 0.8 in value. These bad pixels were interpolated over using adjacent good values in the science frames. Hot, cold, and flaky The data were centroided in a smaller frame which ensured pixels were found and interpolated over in individual science the background visual binary star is clearly visible at an angular frames by their values being more than 1000 counts different separation of 4.5 and a P.A. of 330◦. The unsaturated visual from the median of a 3 × 3 box centered on that pixel. Finally, binary star is crucial for photometry, as the host star was blocked the NICI distortion correction was applied to the images in order by the coronagraph, and the transmission of the light from to perform astrometry on the additional background sources in the star is not well constrained. Kouwenhoven et al. (2005) the field of view. estimated this star to have a Ks magnitude of 12.67 mag. Rameau et al. (2013) found the background star to have a − − ± 2.3. Photometric Calibration Ks L color of 0.3 0.2 mag. Using our NICMOS-derived H-band magnitude of the background star, we estimate a H−Ks Due to the radial transmission function of the apodizer color of 0.14 ± 0.10 mag for the background star.
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