We combine Keck/HIRES radial velocities, imaging with HiCIAO/Subaru and the Hubble Space Telescope, and absolute astrometry from Hipparcos and Gaia to measure a dynamical mass of 70 ± 5 for the brown dwarf companion to Gl 229. Gl 229B was the first imaged brown dwarf to show clear signs of methane in its atmosphere. Cooling models have been used to estimate a mass in the range of 20–55 , much lower than our measured value. We argue that our high dynamical mass is unlikely to be due to perturbations from additional unseen companions or to Gl 229B itself being a binary, and we find no evidence of a previously claimed radial velocity planet around Gl 229A. Future Gaia data releases will confirm the reliability of the absolute astrometry, though the data pass all quality checks in both Hipparcos and Gaia. Our dynamical mass implies a very old age for Gl 229, in some tension with kinematic and activity age indicators, and/or shortcomings in brown dwarf cooling models. Gl 229B joins a small but growing list of T dwarfs with masses approaching the minimum mass for core hydrogen ignition.

We present an open-source Python package, Orbits from Radial Velocity, Absolute, and/or Relative Astrometry (orvara), to fit Keplerian orbits to any combination of radial velocity, relative astrometry, and absolute astrometry data from the Hipparcos-Gaia Catalog of Accelerations. By combining these three data types, one can measure precise masses and sometimes orbital parameters even when the observations cover a small fraction of an orbit. The computational performance of orvara is achieved with an eccentric anomaly solver 5–10 times faster than commonly used approaches and low-level memory management to avoid Python overheads and by analytically marginalizing out parallax, barycenter proper motion, and instrument-specific radial velocity zero-points. Through its integration with the Hipparcos and Gaia intermediate astrometry package htof, orvara can properly account for the epoch astrometry measurements of Hipparcos and the measurement times and scan angles of individual Gaia epochs. We configure orvara with modifiable .ini configuration files tailored to any specific stellar or planetary system. We demonstrate orvara with a case study application to a recently discovered white dwarf/main-sequence system, HD 159062. By adding absolute astrometry to literature radial velocity and relative astrometry data, our comprehensive Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis improves the precision of HD 159062B’s mass by more than an order of magnitude to 0.6083 − 0.0073 + 0.0083 M ☉. We also derive a low eccentricity and large semimajor axis, establishing HD 159062AB as a system that did not experience Roche lobe overflow.

We present the direct imaging discovery of a substellar companion to the nearby Sun-like star, HD 33632 Aa, at a projected separation of ∼20 au, obtained with SCExAO/CHARIS integral field spectroscopy complemented by Keck/NIRC2 thermal infrared imaging. The companion, HD 33632 Ab, induces a 10.5σ astrometric acceleration on the star as detected with the Gaia and Hipparcos satellites. SCExAO/CHARIS JHK (1.1-2.4 μm) spectra and Keck/NIRC2 L p (3.78 μm) photometry are best matched by a field L/T transition object: an older, higher-gravity, and less dusty counterpart to HR 8799 cde. Combining our astrometry with Gaia/Hipparcos data and archival Lick Observatory radial velocities, we measure a dynamical mass of 46.4±8 M J and an eccentricity of e < 0.46 at 95% confidence. HD 33632 Ab's mass and mass ratio (4.0% ± 0.7%) are comparable to the low-mass brown dwarf GJ 758 B and intermediate between the more massive brown dwarf HD 19467 B and the (near-)planet-mass companions to HR 2562 and GJ 504. Using Gaia to select for direct imaging observations with the newest extreme adaptive optics systems can reveal substellar or even planet-mass companions on solar system-like scales at an increased frequency compared to blind surveys. Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Exoplanets (498); Brown dwarfs (185); Astronomical instrumentation (799); Astronomical optics (88); Direct imaging (387); Coronagraphic imaging (313); Exoplanet detection methods (489); Astronomical techniques (1684)

We present a comprehensive orbital analysis to the exoplanets β Pictoris b and c that resolves previously reported tensions between the dynamical and evolutionary mass constraints on β Pic b. We use the Markov Chain Monte Carlo orbit code orvara to fit 15 years of radial velocities and relative astrometry (including recent GRAVITY measurements), absolute astrometry from Hipparcos and Gaia, and a single relative radial velocity measurement between β Pic A and b. We measure model-independent masses of M Jup for β Pic b and 8.3 ± 1.0 M Jup for β Pic c. These masses are robust to modest changes to the input data selection. We find a well-constrained eccentricity of 0.119 ± 0.008 for β Pic b, and an eccentricity of for β Pic c, with the two orbital planes aligned to within ∼05. Both planets’ masses are within ∼1σ of the predictions of hot-start evolutionary models and exclude cold starts. We validate our approach on N-body synthetic data integrated using REBOUND. We show that orvara can account for three-body effects in the β Pic system down to a level ∼5 times smaller than the GRAVITY uncertainties. Systematics in the masses and orbital parameters from orvara’s approximate treatment of multiplanet orbits are a factor of ∼5 smaller than the uncertainties we derive here. Future GRAVITY observations will improve the constraints on β Pic c’s mass and (especially) eccentricity, but improved constraints on the mass of β Pic b will likely require years of additional radial velocity monitoring and improved precision from future Gaia data releases.

We present comprehensive orbital analyses and dynamical masses for the substellar companions Gl 229 B, Gl 758 B, HD 13724 B, HD 19467 B, HD 33632 Ab, and HD 72946 B. Our dynamical fits incorporate radial velocities, relative astrometry, and, most importantly, calibrated Hipparcos-Gaia EDR3 accelerations. For HD 33632 A and HD 72946 we perform three-body fits that account for their outer stellar companions. We present new relative astrometry of Gl 229 B with Keck/NIRC2, extending its observed baseline to 25 yr. We obtain a <1% mass measurement of 71.4 ± 0.6 M Jup for the first T dwarf Gl 229 B and a 1.2% mass measurement of its host star (0.579 ± 0.007 M ⊙) that agrees with the high-mass end of the M-dwarf mass–luminosity relation. We perform a homogeneous analysis of the host stars’ ages and use them, along with the companions’ measured masses and luminosities, to test substellar evolutionary models. Gl 229 B is the most discrepant, as models predict that an object this massive cannot cool to such a low luminosity within a Hubble time, implying that it may be an unresolved binary. The other companions are generally consistent with models, except for HD 13724 B, which has a host star activity age 3.8σ older than its substellar cooling age. Examining our results in context with other mass–age–luminosity benchmarks, we find no trend with spectral type but instead note that younger or lower-mass brown dwarfs are overluminous compared to models, while older or higher-mass brown dwarfs are underluminous. The presented mass measurements for some companions are so precise that the stellar host ages, not the masses, limit the analysis.