Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-06-15
Lafreniere, Jayawardhana & van Kerkwijk 2010, The Astrophysical Journal, 719, 497
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Published in ApJ, 8 pages in emulateapj format
Scientific paper
Giant planets are usually thought to form within a few tens of AU of their host stars, and hence it came as a surprise when we found what appeared to be a planetary mass (~0.008 Msun) companion around the 5 Myr-old solar mass star 1RXS J160929.1-210524 in the Upper Scorpius association. At the time, we took the object's membership in Upper Scorpius -- established from near-infrared, H- and K-band spectroscopy -- and its proximity (2.2", or 330 AU) to the primary as strong evidence for companionship, but could not verify their common proper motion. Here, we present follow-up astrometric measurements that confirm that the companion is indeed co-moving with the primary star, which we interpret as evidence that it is a truly bound planetary mass companion. We also present new J-band spectroscopy and 3.0-3.8 microns photometry of the companion. Based on a comparison with model spectra, these new measurements are consistent with the previous estimate of the companion effective temperature of 1800+/-200 K. We present a new estimate of the companion mass based on evolution models and the calculated bolometric luminosity of the companion; we obtain a value of 0.008 (-0.002/+0.003) Msun, again consistent with our previous result. Finally, we present angular differential imaging observations of the system allowing us to rule out additional planets in the system more massive than 1, 2 and 8 Mjup at projected separations larger than 3" (~440 AU), 0.7" (~100 AU) and 0.35" (~50 AU), respectively. This companion is the least massive known to date at such a large orbital distance; it shows that objects in the planetary mass range exist at orbital separations of several hundred AU, posing a serious challenge for current formation models.
Jayawardhana Ray
Lafreniere David
van Kerkwijk Marten Henric
No associations
LandOfFree
The Directly Imaged Planet around the Young Solar Analog 1RXS J160929.1-210524: Confirmation of Common Proper Motion, Temperature and Mass does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with The Directly Imaged Planet around the Young Solar Analog 1RXS J160929.1-210524: Confirmation of Common Proper Motion, Temperature and Mass, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Directly Imaged Planet around the Young Solar Analog 1RXS J160929.1-210524: Confirmation of Common Proper Motion, Temperature and Mass will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-99495