Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting a Star

Details Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting a Star Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting a Star

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21331907m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #319.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.374

Physics

Optics

1

Scientific paper

The direct imaging detection of exoplanets is a major frontier in planetary astrophysics. Direct imaging of exoplanets surveys a region of semi-major axes (> 5 AU) that is inaccessible to other methods of exoplanet detection and can constrain the population and hence formation models of planets in a region of separations similar to the Jovian-mass planets of our Solar system. Direct detection also opens up new classes of planets to spectral characterization.
Large adaptive optics surveys of Sun-like stars and young associations with 8-10 meter telescopes have revealed no unambiguous exoplanet detection to date. To remove the Sun-like star selection bias of previous AO surveys, we have started an extensive AO survey of young and close A- and F-type stars at the Gemini, Keck and VLT telescopes.
I will discuss our recent discovery of 3 faint companions to a nearby dusty young A-type star (at 24, 37 and 67 AU projected separations). All the companions are confirmed as co-moving with the star and are not background/foreground objects. The outermost planet orbits just inside the radius predicted by blackbody fits to the thermal emission of the star's circumstellar dust. Counterclockwise orbital motion is also observed for two of them. From the system age (60 Myr) and from model-independent luminosity estimates, we derive masses of 11, 9, and 6 Jupiter mass, below the standard planet/brown dwarf boundary of 13.6 Jupiter mass. The system is close enough that detailed spectroscopic characterization of the planets will be possible, and that precision astrometry will allow measurements of the planetary masses.
CM and DL are supported in part through postdoctoral fellowships from the Fonds Quebecois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies

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