No Arabic abstract
The extensive timespan of modern radial velocity surveys have made the discovery of long-period substellar companions more common in recent years, however measuring the true masses of these objects remains challenging. Astrometry from the Gaia mission is expected to provide mass measurements for many of these long-period companions, but this data is not yet available. However, combining proper motion data from Gaia DR2 and the earlier Hipparcos mission makes it possible to measure true masses of substellar companions in favourable cases. In this work, we combine radial velocities with Hipparcos-Gaia astrometry to measure the true masses of two recently discovered long-period substellar companion candidates, HD 92987 B and HD 221420 b. In both cases, we find that the true masses are significantly higher than implied by radial velocities alone. A $2087 pm 19$ m s$^{-1}$ astrometric signal reveals that HD 92987 B is not close to its $17$ $M_J$ minimum mass but is instead a $0.2562 pm 0.0045$ $M_odot$ star viewed at a near-polar orbital inclination, whereas the $22.9 pm 2.2$ $M_J$ HD 221420 b can be plausibly interpreted as a high-mass super-planet or a low-mass brown dwarf. With semi-major axes of $sim$10 AU both companions are interesting targets for direct imaging, and HD 221420 b in particular would be a benchmark metal-rich substellar object if it proves possible to directly detect. Our results demonstrate the power of Hipparcos-Gaia astrometry for studying long-period planet and brown dwarf candidates discovered from radial velocity surveys.
The determination of the fundamental properties (mass, separation, age, gravity and atmospheric properties) of brown dwarf companions allows us to infer crucial informations on their formation and evolution mechanisms. Spectroscopy of substellar companions is available to date only for a limited number of objects (and mostly at very low resolution, R<50) because of technical limitations, i.e., contrast and angular resolution. We present medium resolution (R=350), coronagraphic long-slit spectroscopic observations with SPHERE of two substellar companions, HD 1160 B and HD 19467 B. We found that HD 1160 B has a peculiar spectrum that cannot be fitted by spectra in current spectral libraries. A good fit is possible only considering separately the Y+J and the H spectral band. The spectral type is between M5 and M7. We also estimated a T_eff of 2800-2900 K and a log(g) of 3.5-4.0 dex. The low surface gravity seems to favour young age (10-20 Myr) and low mass (~20 M Jup ) for this object. HD 19467 B is instead a fully evolved object with a T_eff of ~1000 K and log g of ~5.0 dex. Its spectral type is T6+/-1.
[abridged] We attempt to improve on the characterization of the properties (orbital elements, masses) of two Doppler-detected sub-stellar companions to the nearby G dwarfs HD 131664 and HD 43848. We carry out orbital fits to the Hipparcos IAD for the two stars, taking advantage of the knowledge of the spectroscopic orbits, and solving for the two orbital elements that can be determined in principle solely by astrometry, the inclination angle $i$ and the longitude of the ascending node $Omega$. A number of checks are carried out in order to assess the reliability of the orbital solutions thus obtained. The best-fit solution for HD 131664 yields $i=55pm33$ deg and $Omega=22pm28$ deg. The resulting inferred true companion mass is then $M_c = 23_{-5}^{+26}$ $M_J$. For object{HD 43848}, we find $i=12pm7$ deg and $Omega=288pm22$ deg, and $M_c = 120_{-43}^{+167}$ $M_J$. Based on the statistical evidence from an $F$-test, the study of the joint confidence intervals of variation of $i$ and $Omega$, and the comparison of the derived orbital semi-major axes with a distribution of false astrometric orbits obtained for single stars observed by Hipparcos, the astrometric signal of the two companions to HD 131664 and HD 43848 is then considered detected in the Hipparcos IAD, with a level of statistical confidence not exceeding 95%. We constrain the true mass of HD 131664b to that of a brown dwarf to within a somewhat statistically significant degree of confidence ($sim2-sigma$). For HD 43848b, a true mass in the brown dwarf regime is ruled out at the $1-sigma$ confidence level. [abridged]
We measure dynamical masses for five objects--three ultracool dwarfs, one low-mass star, and one white dwarf--by fitting orbits to a combination of the Hipparcos-Gaia Catalog of Accelerations, literature radial velocities, and relative astrometry. Our approach provides precise masses without any assumptions about the primary star, even though the observations typically cover only a small fraction of an orbit. We also perform a uniform re-analysis of the host stars ages. Two of our objects, HD 4747B and HR 7672B, already have precise dynamical masses near the stellar/substellar boundary and are used to validate our approach. For Gl 758B, we obtain a mass of $m=38.1_{-1.5}^{+1.7}$ $M_{Jup}$, the most precise mass measurement of this companion to date. Gl 758B is the coldest brown dwarf with a dynamical mass, and the combination of our low mass and slightly older host-star age resolves its previously noted discrepancy with substellar evolutionary models. HD 68017B, a late-M dwarf, has a mass of $m=0.147pm 0.003$ $M_odot$, consistent with stellar theory and previous empirical estimates based on its absolute magnitude. The progenitor of the white dwarf Gl 86B has been debated in the literature, and our dynamical measurement of $m=0.595 pm 0.010$ $M_odot$ is consistent with a higher progenitor mass and younger age for this planet-hosting binary system. Overall, these case studies represent only five of the thousands of accelerating systems identified by combining Hipparcos and Gaia. Our analysis could be repeated for many of them to build a large sample of companions with dynamical masses.
To fully constrain the orbits of low mass circumstellar companions, we conduct combined analyses of the radial velocity data as well as the Gaia and Hipparcos astrometric data for eight nearby systems. Our study shows that companion-induced position and proper motion differences between Gaia and Hipparcos are significant enough to constrain orbits of low mass companions to a precision comparable with previous combined analyses of direct imaging and radial velocity data. We find that our method is robust to whether we use Gaia DR2 or Gaia EDR3, as well as whether we use all of the data, or just proper motion differences. In particular, we fully characterize the orbits of HD 190360 b and HD 16160 C for the first time. With a mass of 1.8$pm$0.2$m_{rm Jup}$ and an effective temperature of 123-176 K and orbiting around a Sun-like star, HD 190360 b is the smallest Jupiter-like planet with well-constrained mass and orbit, belonging to a small sample of fully characterized Jupiter analogs. It is separated from its primary star by 0.25$$ and thus may be suitable for direct imaging by the CGI instrument of the Roman Space Telescope.
An important aspect of searching for exoplanets is understanding the binarity of the host stars. It is particularly important because nearly half of the solar-like stars within our own Milky Way are part of binary or multiple systems. Moreover, the presence of two or more stars within a system can place further constraints on planetary formation, evolution, and orbital dynamics. As part of our survey of almost a hundred host stars, we obtained images at 692 nm and 880 nm bands using the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI) at the Gemini-North Observatory. From our survey, we detect stellar companions to HD 2638 and HD 164509. The stellar companion to HD 2638 has been previously detected, but the companion to HD 164509 is a newly discovered companion. The angular separation for HD 2638 is $0.512 pm 0.002arcsec$ and for HD 164509 is $0.697 pm 0.002arcsec$. This corresponds to a projected separation of $25.6 pm 1.9$ AU and $36.5 pm 1.9$ AU, respectively. By employing stellar isochrone models, we estimate the mass of the stellar companions of HD 2638 and HD 164509 to be $0.483 pm 0.007$ $M_sun$ and $0.416 pm 0.007$ $M_sun$, respectively, and their effective temperatures to be $3570 pm 8$~K and $3450 pm 7$~K, respectively. These results are consistent with the detected companions being late-type M dwarfs.