Discovery of a Low-mass Companion to a Metal-rich F Star with the MARVELS Pilot Project

Creators: Fleming, Scott W.; Kane, Stephen R.; van Eyken, Julian C.; Crepp, Justin R.

Abstract

We report the discovery of a low-mass companion orbiting the metal-rich, main sequence F star TYC 2949-00557-1 during the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS) pilot project. The host star has an effective temperature T_(eff) = 6135 ± 40 K, logg = 4.4 ± 0.1, and [Fe/H] = 0.32 ± 0.01, indicating a mass of M_⊙ = 1.25 ± 0.09 M_⊙ and R = 1.15 ± 0.15 R_⊙. The companion has an orbital period of 5.69449 ± 0.00023 days and straddles the hydrogen burning limit with a minimum mass of 64 M_J , and thus may be an example of the rare class of brown dwarfs orbiting at distances comparable to those of "Hot Jupiters." We present relative photometry that demonstrates that the host star is photometrically stable at the few millimagnitude level on time scales of hours to years, and rules out transits for a companion of radius ≳ 0.8 R_J at the 95% confidence level. Tidal analysis of the system suggests that the star and companion are likely in a double synchronous state where both rotational and orbital synchronization have been achieved. This is the first low-mass companion detected with a multi-object, dispersed, fixed-delay interferometer.

Additional Information

© 2010 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2010 April 26; accepted 2010 June 8; published 2010 July 13. We thank the anonymous referee for comments that improved the quality of this paper. Thanks to Eric Agol for editing of the manuscript draft that greatly improved the quality of the paper. Funding for the multi-object Doppler instrument was provided by the W.M. Keck Foundation. The pilot survey was funded by NSF with grant AST-0705139, NASA with grant NNX07AP14G and the University of Florida. S.W.F. is supported through a Florida Space Grant Fellowship. K.G.S, and J.P. acknowledge funding support from the Vanderbilt Initiative in Data-Intensive Astrophysics (VIDA) from Vanderbilt University, and from NSF Career award AST-0349075. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. Based on observations with the SDSS 2.5 m telescope. Funding for the SDSS and SDSS-II has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, the Max Planck Society, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The SDSS Web Site is http://www.sdss.org/. The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are the American Museum of Natural History, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, University of Basel, University of Cambridge, Case Western Reserve University, University of Chicago, Drexel University, Fermilab, the Institute For Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Korean Scientist Group, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST), Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck- Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. Based on observations obtained with the Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m telescope, which is owned and operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium. This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. The Hobby–Eberly Telescope (HET) is a joint project of the University of Texas at Austin, Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität München, and Georg- August-Universität Göttingen. The HET is named in honor of its principal benefactors, William P. Hobby and Robert E. Eberly. The Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds is supported by the Pennsylvania State University, the Eberly College of Science, and the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium.

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