HST FGS Astrometry of Proxima Centauri and Barnard's Star - Stellar Paths with Dangerous Curves

Details HST FGS Astrometry of Proxima Centauri and Barnard's Star - Stellar Paths with Dangerous Curves HST FGS Astrometry of Proxima Centauri and Barnard's Star - Stellar Paths with Dangerous Curves

Sep 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998dda....30.0503b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #30, #05.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 30, p.1142

Physics

Optics

2

Scientific paper

We report on astrometric efforts to detect planetary-mass companions associated with two M dwarf stars, Proxima Centauri and Barnard's Star (0.10 and 0.12 solar masses). Our astrometer is a white-light interferometer (Fine Guidance Sensor 3) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. Recent re-calibrations, including a final Lateral Color Calibration (FGS 3 contains refractive optics) have improved the precision of parallax and proper motion modeling, and, hence, unseen companion detection limits. We now have companion limits below Saturn mass for periods P /sim 600 days. Detection limits for longer period companions depend on curvature in the residual vs. time plots. We discuss curvature detected in both Proxima Cen and Barnard's Star residual plots. The curvature in Barnard's Star is identified as secular acceleration, agreeing with predictions from proper motion and radial velocity and recent measurements (Gatewood 1995, Ap&SS, 223, 91). The statistically significant curvature in the Proxima Cen residuals could be either a previously unrecognized systematic error or a long-period, low-mass companion.

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