A Planet in a Circular Orbit with a 6 Year Period
1
Brad D. Carter2 , R. Paul Butler3 , C. G. Tinney4 , Hugh R. A. Jones5 , Geoffrey W. Marcy6 ,
Chris McCarthy3 , Debra A. Fischer6 , Alan J. Penny7
arXiv:astro-ph/0307066v1 3 Jul 2003
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Precision Doppler velocity measurements from the 3.9–m Anglo-Australian
Telescope reveal a planet with a 6 year period orbiting the G5 dwarf HD 70642.
The a = 3.3 AU orbit has a low eccentricity (e = 0.1), and the minimum (M sin i )
mass of the planet is 2.0 MJUP . The host star is metal rich relative to the Sun,
similar to most stars with known planets. The distant and approximately circular
orbit of this planet makes it a member of a rare group to emerge from precision
Doppler surveys.
Subject headings: planetary systems – stars: individual (HD 70642)
1.
Introduction
Of the 77 extrasolar planets currently listed by the IAU Working Group on Extrasolar
Planets8 (including planet candidates published in a refereed journals with M sin i < 10
MJUP ), only three systems have been found to harbor planets in circular orbits (e < 0.1)
1
Based on observations obtained at the Anglo–Australian Telescope, Siding Spring, Australia
2
Faculty of Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland 4350, Australia
3
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road
NW, Washington D.C. USA 20015-1305
4
Anglo–Australian Observatory, P.O. Box 296, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia
5
Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Twelve Quays House, Egerton
Wharf, Birkenhead CH41 1LD, UK
6
Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA USA 94720 and at Department of
Physics and Astronomy, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA 94132
7
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0QX, UK
8
http : //www.ciw.edu/boss/IAU/div3/wgesp/planets.shtml
–2–
orbits beyond 0.5 AU – 47 UMa (Fischer et al. 2002; Butler & Marcy 1996), HD 27442
(Butler et al. 2001), and HD 4208 (Vogt et al. 2002). With 13 “51 Peg–type” planets (P
< 5 d), and ∼60 eccentric planets (e > 0.1), the long period circular orbits are the rarest of
the three types of planetary systems to emerge over the last 8 years.
With one exception, all the IAU Working Group List planets orbit within 4 AU of their
host stars. As all these planets have been discovered via the precision Doppler technique,
there is a strong selection bias toward discovering systems with small semimajor axes. Unsurprisingly, the only extrasolar planet so far found to orbit beyond 4 AU was detected by
the precision Doppler survey that has been gathering data the longest (Marcy et al. 2002).
Perhaps the most critical question facing the field of extrasolar planetary science is “Are
Solar System analogs (ie. systems with giants planets in circular orbits beyond 4 AU and
small rocky planets orbiting in the inner few AU) ubiquitous, or rare?” Existing precision
Doppler surveys will become sensitive to giant planets orbiting beyond 4 AU by the end of
this decade, though only those programs with long term precision of 3 m s−1 or better will
be able to determine if the orbits of such planets are eccentric or circular (Butler et al. 2001,
Figure 11).
We report here a new extrasolar planet in an approximately circular orbit beyond 3
AU, discovered with the 3.9m Anglo–Australian Telescope (AAT). The Anglo-Australian
Planet Search program is described in Section 2. The characteristics of the host star and
the precision Doppler measurements are presented in Section 3. A discussion follows.
2.
The Anglo–Australian Planet Search
The Anglo-Australian Planet Search began in 1998 January, and is currently surveying
250 stars. Fourteen planet candidates with M sin i ranging from 0.2 to 10 MJUP have first
been published with AAT data (Tinney et al. 2001; Butler et al. 2001; Tinney et al. 2002a;
Jones et al. 2002a; Butler et al. 2002; Jones et al. 2002b; Tinney et al. 2003a; Jones et al.
2003), and an additional four planet candidates have been confirmed with AAT data (Butler
et al. 2001).
Precision Doppler measurements are made with the University College London Echelle
Spectrograph (UCLES) (Diego et al. 1990). An iodine absorption cell (Marcy & Butler 1992)
provides wavelength calibration from 5000 to 6000 Å. The spectrograph PSF and wavelength
calibration are derived from the embedded iodine lines (Valenti et al. 1995; Butler et al.
1996). This system has demonstrated long term precision of 3 m s−1 (Butler et al. 2001),
similar to (if not exceeding) the iodine systems on the Lick 3-m (Butler et al. 1996; 1997)
–3–
and the Keck 10-m (Vogt et al. 2000).
3.
HD 70642
HD 70642 (HIP 40952, SAO 199126) is a nearby G5 dwarf, at a distance of 28.8 pc
(Perryman et al. 1997), a V magnitude of 7.17, and an absolute magnitude of MV = 4.87.
The star is photometrically stable within Hipparcos measurement error (0.01 magnitudes).
The star is chromospherically inactive, with logR’(HK) = −4.90 ±0.06, determined from
AAT/UCLES spectra of the Ca II H&K lines (Tinney et al. 2003b; Tinney et al. 2002b).
Figure 1 shows the H line compared to the Sun. The chromospherically inferred age of HD
70642 is ∼4 Gyr.
Spectral synthesis (LTE) of our AAT/UCLES spectrum of HD 70642 yields Tef f =5670
±20 K and V sin i = 2.4 ±1 km s−1 consistent with its status as a middle–aged G5 dwarf.
Like most planet bearing stars, HD 70642 is metal rich relative to the Sun. We estimate
[Fe/H] = +0.16 ±0.02 from spectral synthesis, in excellent agreement with the photometric
determination of Eggen (1998). While Ni tracks Fe for most G & K dwarfs, the [Ni/H] =
+0.22 ±0.03 appears slightly high for HD 70642. The mass of HD 70642 estimated from
B–V , MBol , and [Fe/H] is 1.0 ±0.05 M⊙ .
A total of 21 precision Doppler measurements of HD 70642 spanning more than 5 years
are listed in Table 1 and shown in Figure 2. The solid line in Figure 2 is the best–fit
Keplerian. The Keplerian parameters are listed in Table 2. The reduced χ2ν of the Keplerian
fit is 1.4. Figure 3 is a plot of orbital eccentricity vs. semimajor axis for the planet orbiting
HD70642, for extrasolar planets listed by the IAU Working Group on Extrasolar Planets,
and Solar System planets out to Jupiter. HD 70642b joins 47 UMa c (Fischer et al. 2002)
as the only planets yet found in an approximately circular (e ≤ 0.1) orbit beyond 3 AU.
4.
Discussion
Prior to the discovery of extrasolar planets, planetary systems were predicted to be
architecturally similar to the Solar System (Lissauer 1995; Boss 1995), with giant planets
orbiting beyond 4 AU in circular orbits, and terrestrial mass planets inhabiting the inner
few AU. The landscape revealed by the first ∼80 extrasolar planets is quite different. Extrasolar planetary systems have proven to be much more diverse than imagined, as predicted
by Lissauer (1995), “The variety of planets and planetary systems in our galaxy must be
immense and even more difficult to imagine and predict than was the diversity of the outer
–4–
planet satellites prior to the Voyager mission.”
The discovery here of a Jupiter–mass planet in a circular orbit highlights the existence,
but also the rarity, of giant planets that seem similar to the original theoretical predictions.
Review of all the known extrasolar planets, both those described in refereed, published journals (http : //www.ciw.edu/boss/IAU/div3/wgesp/planets.shtml) and those in the larger
list of claimed extrasolar planets (http : //exoplanets.org) shows that ∼7% of extrasolar
planets orbiting beyond 0.5 AU reside in circular orbits (e <0.1). Further detections of
planets beyond 1 AU are needed to determine if circular orbits are more common for planets
that orbit farther from the host star.
Over the next decade precision Doppler programs will continue to be the primary means
of detecting planets orbiting stars within 50 parsecs. By the end of this decade, Doppler
programs carried out at precisions of 3 m s−1 or better by our group, and by others (e.g.,
Mayor & Santos 2002), will be sensitive to Jupiter and Saturn–mass planets orbiting beyond
4 AU. The central looming question is whether these planets will commonly be found in
circular orbits, or if the architecture of the Solar System is rare.
Of the greatest anthropocentric interest are planets in intrinsically circular orbits, as
opposed to the short period planets in tidally circularized orbits. NASA and ESA have
made plans for new telescopes to detect terrestrial mass planets. Transit missions such as
COROT, Kepler and Eddington may be sensitive to terrestrial mass planets orbiting near 1
AU, providing valuable information on the incidence of such planets. As terrestrial planets
make photometric signatures of 1 part in 10,000, these missions may be subject to interpretive
difficulties that already challenge current ground–based transit searches for Jupiter–sized
planets. Transit missions cannot determine orbital eccentricity, and thus cannot determine
if planets are Solar System analogs. These space–based transit missions are targeting stars
at several hundred parsecs, making follow–up by other techniques difficult.
Ground–based interferometric astrometry programs at Keck and VLT are projected to
begin taking data by the end of this decade. These programs are complementary to existing
precision Doppler velocity programs in that they are most sensitive to planets in distant
orbits. Like Doppler velocities, astrometry needs to observe one or more complete orbits
to make a secure detection and solve for orbital parameters. It is thus likely that the first
significant crop of ground–based astrometry planets will emerge after 2015.
The NASA Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) is scheduled to launch in 2009. A
key objective of the SIM mission is the detection of planets as small as 3 Earth–masses
in 1 AU orbits around the nearest stars. SIM offers the promise of determining actual
masses of terrestrial planets, thereby securing their status unambiguously. Simulations based
–5–
on the SIM measurement specifications, along with the proposed target stars, the 5 year
mission lifetime, and a planet mass function extrapolated to the Earth–mass regime9 , yield
predictions that as many as ∼5 terrestrial planets could be found (Ford & Tremaine 2003).
Giant planets orbiting 2–5 AU from the host stars are also detectable with SIM, though
the orbital parameters will not be not well determined in a 5 year mission. A 10 year
SIM mission yields significantly better orbital determination for Jupiter–analogs. Overall
the detection capabilities of SIM are similar to existing precision Doppler programs with
a precision of 3 m s−1 (Ford & Tremaine 2003), thereby providing confirmation of known
planets and unambiguous masses.
Direct imaging missions such as the NASA Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) and the ESA
DARWIN mission have the primary goal of detecting Earth–like planets and obtaining low
resolution spectra that might reveal biomarkers. Such missions will not return dynamical
information and hence will not directly reveal the masses of detected planets. Current
plans call for the launching of such missions around 2015, perhaps optimistically. We expect
that continued Doppler measurements, as well as future astrometric missions, will contribute
significantly to the interpretation of the unresolved companions detected by TPF/DARWIN.
We acknowledge support by NSF grant AST-9988087, NASA grant NAG5-12182, and
travel support from the Carnegie Institution of Washington (to RPB), NASA grant NAG58299 and NSF grant AST95-20443 (to GWM), and by Sun Microsystems. We also wish
to acknowledge the support of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. We thank the Australian
(ATAC) and UK (PATT) Telescope assignment committees for allocations of AAT time. We
are grateful for the extraordinary support we have received from the AAT technical staff – E.
Penny, R. Paterson, D. Stafford, F. Freeman, S. Lee, J. Pogson, and G. Schaffer. We would
especially like to express our gratitude to the AAO Director, Brian Boyle. The AAT Planet
Search Program was created and thrived under Brian’s tenure as Director in large measure
because of his critical support and encouragement. The Australia Telescope National Facility
(ATNF) is fortunate to have Brian as their new Director.
9
A power–law extrapolation admittedly fraught with uncertainty.
–6–
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This preprint was prepared with the AAS LATEX macros v5.0.
–8–
Table 1. Velocities for HD 70642
JD
(−2450000)
830.1082
1157.2263
1213.1051
1236.0850
1630.0095
1717.8810
1920.1348
1983.9687
2009.0210
2060.8744
2420.9072
2424.8981
2455.8416
2592.2229
2595.2255
2710.0700
2744.9571
2747.9155
2749.9755
2751.9384
2785.9082
RV
(m s−1 )
-25.8
-36.4
-42.6
-37.5
-15.9
-9.4
15.0
13.7
13.2
27.7
12.7
11.4
20.0
12.7
15.2
0.8
0.3
-4.2
-7.4
-5.6
-3.4
Uncertainty
(m s−1 )
4.2
4.4
4.3
5.2
3.6
3.9
4.8
5.8
4.6
3.4
3.1
3.1
2.8
2.9
3.4
3.0
3.1
2.7
2.2
2.4
2.4
–9–
Table 2. Orbital solution for HD 70642
Parameter
Value
Uncertainty
Orbital period P (days)
Velocity semiamplitude K (m s−1 )
Eccentricity e
Periastron date (Julian Date)
ω (degrees)
Msin i (MJUP )
semimajor axis (AU)
Nobs
RMS (m s−1 )
2231
32
0.10
2451749
277
2.0
3.3
21
4.0
400
5
0.06
300
75
– 10 –
Fig. 1.— Ca II H line of HD 70642 (top) compared to the Sun. HD 70642 is a near solar
twin in both mass and chromospheric activity. Chromospherically quiescent stars such as
these are intrinsically stable at the 3 m s−1 level.
– 11 –
Fig. 2.— Doppler velocities for HD 70642. The best–fit Keplerian is shown as a solid line,
with period, P = 6.1 yr, semiamplitude, K = 32 m s−1 , eccentricity e = 0.10, yielding
M sin i = 2.0 MJUP . The RMS to the Keplerian fit, 4.0 m s−1 , is consistent with measurement uncertainty.
– 12 –
Fig. 3.— Orbital eccentricity vs. semimajor axis for the planet orbiting HD70642 (asterisk),
extrasolar planets listed by the IAU Working Group on Extrasolar Planets (filled circles),
and Solar System planets out to Jupiter (diamonds with accompanying planetary symbols).
HD 70642b joins 47 UMa c as the only planets yet found in an approximately circular (e ≤
0.1) orbit beyond 3 AU.