Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2007-04-23
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
A White Paper for the ExoPlanet Task Force: 7 pages
Scientific paper
The astrometric signature imposed by a planet on its primary increases substantially towards longer periods (proportinal to P^2/3), so that long-period planets can be more easily detected, in principle. For example, a one Solar-mass (M_Sun) star would be pulled by roughly 1 mas by a one Jupiter-mass (M_J) planet with a period of one-hundred years at a distance of 20 pc. Such position accuracies can now be obtained with both ground-based and space-based telescopes. The difficulty was that it often takes many decades before a detectable position shift will occur. However, by the time the next generation of astrometric missions such as SIM will be taking data, several decades will have past since the first astrometric mission, HIPPARCOS. Here we propose to use a new astrometric method that employs a future, highly accurate SIM Quick-Look survey and HIPPARCOS data taken twenty years prior. Using position errors for SIM of 4 muas, this method enables the detection and characterization of Solar-system analogs (SOSAs) with periods up to 240 (500) years for 1 (10) M_J companions. Because many tens of thousands nearby stars can be surveyed this way for a modest expenditure of SIM time and SOSAs may be quite abundant, we expect to find many hundreds of extra-solar planets with long-period orbits. Such a data set would nicely complement the short-period systems found by the radial-velocity method. Brown dwarfs and low-mass stellar companions can be found and characterized if their periods are shorter than about 500 years. This data set will provide invaluable constraints on models of planet formation, as well as a database for systems where the location of the giant planets allow for the formation of low-mass planets in the habitable zone. [Abridged]
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