Physics – Optics
Scientific paper
Jun 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...208.2604m&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 208, #26.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.105
Physics
Optics
Scientific paper
We present new near-infrared spectra and photometry for 2MASS1207-3932 B, the recently discovered planetary-mass companion to the very young nearby brown dwarf 2M1207-3932 A. The observations were undertaken with the Near-infrared Adaptive Optics System on the VLT. Detailed spectral synthesis and comparison to evolutionary tracks enables us to fix the effective temperature and mass of both the primary and secondary: TEFF-A = 2550±100K, MA = 25±5 MJUP; TEFF-B = 1600±100K, MB = 8±2 MJUP. Thus the secondary is confirmed to have a planetary mass, but is hotter and more massive than previous preliminary analyses had suggested; it also has an extremely dusty atmosphere. Most importantly, the secondary is nearly an order of magnitude under-luminous for its distance and temperature: specifically, it is 2.5 magnitudes fainter than expected in all infrared photometric bands from J to L´, and in bolometric luminosity. Through an exhaustive consideration of various possibilities, we show that the only viable explanation for such grey extinction is that the secondary possesses an edge-on circum-planetary disk. The mass ratio and physical separation between the primary and secondary suggest that 2M1207-3932 B did not arise from core-accretion in the primary’s disk, the standard theory of planet-formation; instead, the system probably formed as a low-mass analog of stellar binaries. Nevertheless, the existence of this system indicates that: (1) in the brown dwarf regime, binary formation processes can directly produce planetary-mass companions; and (2) such companions can possess disks of their own, perhaps eventually to form circum-planetary moons and asteroids.
Huelamo Nuria
Jayawardhana Ray
Mamajek Eric E.
Mohanty Subhanjoy
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