Evidence for an additional planet in the β Pictoris system (original) (raw)

Nature Astronomy volume 3, pages 1135–1142 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

With its imaged debris disk of dust, its evaporating exocomets, and an imaged giant planet, the young (~23 Myr) β Pictoris system is a unique proxy for detailed studies of planet formation processes as well as planet–disk interactions. Here, we study ten years of European Southern Observatory/High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) high-resolution spectroscopic data of β Pictoris. After removing the radial velocity (RV) signals arising from the δ Scuti pulsations of the star, a ~1,200-d periodic signal remains, which, within our current knowledge, we can only attribute to a second planet in the system. The β Pic c mass is about nine times the mass of Jupiter; it orbits at ~2.7 au on an eccentric (e ~ 0.24) orbit. More RV data are needed to obtain more precise estimates of the properties of β Pic c. The current modelling of the planet’s properties and the dynamic of the whole system has to be reinvestigated in light of this detection.

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Data availability

The HARPS spectra are available in the ESO archive, and the measured RV data are given in Supplementary Table 1.

Code availability

The codes used for this paper are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by grants from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-14-CE33–0018) and the French Labex OSUG@2020 (Investissements d’avenir—ANR10 LABX56). A.Z. was supported by CONICYT grant no. 2117053. A.-M.L. thanks F. Forbes, K. Zwincks, A. Lecavelier, J. Pepper, P. Kervella and J. C. B. Papaloizou for discussions. T.G., D.M., L.A. and F.-X.S. acknowledge support from Idex UCAJEDI (ANR-15-IDEX-01) and IPEV.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble, Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France
    A.-M. Lagrange, Nadège Meunier, Miriam Keppler, Franck Galland, Hervé Beust, Antoine Grandjean, Simon Borgniet, Mickael Bonnefoy & Laetitia Rodet
  2. Pixyl, La Tronche, France
    Pascal Rubini
  3. Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany
    Miriam Keppler
  4. Université Côte d’Azur, OCA, Lagrange CNRS, Nice, France
    Eric Chapellier, Tristan Guillot, Djamel Mékarnia, Lyu Abe & François-Xavier Schmider
  5. LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, Meudon, France
    Eric Michel
  6. South African Astronomical Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa
    Luis Balona
  7. CNRS, UMR7095, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, Paris, France
    Paul Anthony Wilson & Flavien Kiefer
  8. Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
    Paul Anthony Wilson
  9. Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
    Paul Anthony Wilson
  10. European Southern Observatory, Vitacura, Santiago, Chile
    Jorge Lillo-Box, Blake Pantoja & Matias Jones
  11. Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
    Blake Pantoja & Matias Diaz
  12. Instituto de Fisica y Astronomia, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile
    Daniela Paz Iglesias
  13. Núcleo Milenio de Formación Planetaria—NPF, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile
    Daniela Paz Iglesias
  14. Center of Astro-Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
    Abner Zapata

Authors

  1. A.-M. Lagrange
  2. Nadège Meunier
  3. Pascal Rubini
  4. Miriam Keppler
  5. Franck Galland
  6. Eric Chapellier
  7. Eric Michel
  8. Luis Balona
  9. Hervé Beust
  10. Tristan Guillot
  11. Antoine Grandjean
  12. Simon Borgniet
  13. Djamel Mékarnia
  14. Paul Anthony Wilson
  15. Flavien Kiefer
  16. Mickael Bonnefoy
  17. Jorge Lillo-Box
  18. Blake Pantoja
  19. Matias Jones
  20. Daniela Paz Iglesias
  21. Laetitia Rodet
  22. Matias Diaz
  23. Abner Zapata
  24. Lyu Abe
  25. François-Xavier Schmider

Contributions

A.-M.L. led the monitoring of the variations, the data reduction, the analysis and interpretation of the data, and the paper writing. N.M., P.R., M.K. and F.G. participated to the data fitting and analysis. E.C., E.M., L.B. and F.-X.S. brought their expertise in stellar variability. H.B. provided analysis of the dynamical stability of the system. T.G., D.M. and L.A. brought expertise on β Pictoris photometric variability. P.A.W. and F.K. brought expertise on β Pictoris spectroscopic variability. M.B., S.B., A.G., J.L.-B., B.P., D.P.I., L.R. and A.Z.S. participated in the observations.

Corresponding author

Correspondence toA.-M. Lagrange.

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Lagrange, AM., Meunier, N., Rubini, P. et al. Evidence for an additional planet in the β Pictoris system.Nat Astron 3, 1135–1142 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0857-1

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