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Published May 20, 2014 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Discovery of a Wide Planetary-mass Companion to the Young M3 Star GU Psc

Abstract

We present the discovery of a comoving planetary-mass companion ~42" (~2000 AU) from a young M3 star, GU Psc, a likely member of the young AB Doradus Moving Group (ABDMG). The companion was first identified via its distinctively red i − z color (>3.5) through a survey made with Gemini-S/GMOS. Follow-up Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope/WIRCam near-infrared (NIR) imaging, Gemini-N/GNIRS NIR spectroscopy and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer photometry indicate a spectral type of T3.5 ± 1 and reveal signs of low gravity which we attribute to youth. Keck/Adaptive Optics NIR observations did not resolve the companion as a binary. A comparison with atmosphere models indicates T_eff = 1000–1100 K and log g = 4.5–5.0. Based on evolution models, this temperature corresponds to a mass of 9–13  M_Jup for the age of ABDMG (70–130 Myr). The relatively well-constrained age of this companion and its very large angular separation to its host star will allow its thorough characterization and will make it a valuable comparison for planetary-mass companions that will be uncovered by forthcoming planet-finder instruments such as Gemini Planet Imager and SPHERE.

Additional Information

© 2014. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 October 31; accepted 2014 March 26; published 2014 April 28. We would like to thank the anonymous referee for constructive comments and suggestions that greatly improved the overall quality of the paper. This work was financially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada and the Fond de Recherche Québécois—Nature et Technologie (FRQNT; Québec). D.S. is supported by NASA Astrophysics Theory grant NNH11AQ54I. D.H. acknowledges support from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013 Grant Agreement no. 247060). Based on observations obtained at the Gemini Observatory (Gemini-S/PHOENIX: program GS-2010B-Q-89, Gemini-S/GMOS: program GS-2011B-Q-74, Gemini-S/NICI: programs GS-2011B-Q-24 and GS-2012B-Q-54 and Gemini-N/GNIRS: program GN-2012B-Q-58), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the Australian Research Council (Australia), Ministerio da Cincia, Tecnologia e Inovacao (Brazil) and Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologa e Innovacin Productiva (Argentina). Observations were also collected at CFHT with WIRCam (run IDs: 11BC20 and 12BC20) and ESPaDOnS (run ID: 12AC23), at the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope under program ID: 087.D-0510, 091.D-0641 and on CPAPIR infrared camera, at Observatoire du mont Mégantic, which is funded by the Université de Montréal, Université Laval and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The authors recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Mauna Kea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. Finally, we also obtained data from the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility, with SpeX, under the program number 2013B025. This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, and funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation, of the NASA's Astrophysics Data System Bibliographic Services, SIMBAD database, the VizieR catalog access tool and the SIMBAD database operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. The BT-Settl model atmospheres have been computed at the Pôle Scientifique de Modélisation Numérique of the ENS de Lyon, and at the Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung Göttingen in co-operation with the Institut für Astrophysik Göttingen. This publication has made use of the L and T dwarf data archive, http://staff.gemini.edu/~sleggett/LTdata.html.

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Published - 0004-637X_787_1_5.pdf

Submitted - 1405.2932v2.pdf

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Created:
August 22, 2023
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October 26, 2023