A Jupiter-mass companion to a solar-type star

Abstract

The detection and characterisation of extra-solar planets is a major theme driving modern astronomy, with the vast majority of such measurements being achieved by Doppler radial-velocity and transit observations. Another technique -direct imaging -can access a parameter space that complements these methods, and paves the way for future technologies capable of detailed characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres and surfaces. However achieving the required levels of performance with direct imaging, particularly from ground-based telescopes which must contend with the Earth's turbulent atmosphere, requires considerable sophistication in the instrument and detection strategy. Here we demonstrate a new generation of photonic pupil-remapping devices which build upon the interferometric framework developed for the Dragonfly instrument: a high contrast waveguide-based device which recovers robust complex visibility observables. New generation Dragonfly devices overcome problems caused by interference from unguided light and low throughput, promising unprecedented on-sky performance. Closure phase measurement scatter of only ∼ 0.2 • has been achieved, with waveguide throughputs of > 70%. This translates to a maximum contrast-ratio sensitivity (between the host star and its orbiting planet) at 1λ /D (1σ detection) of 5.3 × 10 −4 (when a conventional adaptive-optics (AO) system is used) or 1.8 × 10 −4 (for typical 'extreme-AO' performance), improving even further when random error is minimised by averaging over multiple exposures. This is an order of magnitude beyond conventional pupil-segmenting interferometry techniques (such as aperture masking), allowing a previously inaccessible part of the star to planet contrast-separation parameter space to be explored.

Formation, migration, and stability of extrasolar planetary systems

“…We note that the extrasolar planets discovered thus far (e.g., Mayor & Queloz 1995;Marcy & Butler 1996;Butler et al 1999;Marcy et al 2001) have masses near that of Jupiter and are thus thought to be gaseous giant planets. Although terrestrial planets have not been detected in extrasolar systems with main-sequence primaries due to their small masses, they are expected to readily form in such systems alongside their Jovian counterparts (e.g., Lissauer 1993).…”

“…The extrasolar planets detected thus far (again, see Mayor & Queloz 1995;Marcy & Butler 1996;Butler et al 1999;Marcy et al 2001) have apparently moved from their birth locations in the outer nebula and now reside in rather unusual orbits, with small semi-major axes a and large eccenticities . An important challenge for planet formation theories is to account for this migration phenomenon.…”

Dynamical evolution of extrasolar planetary systems

“…However, as the solar system was the only paradigm of planetary system before 1990's, the classical perturbation theory for planet dynamics was based on near-circular orbits with large separations. The discovery of the extrasolar planets around a neutron star PSR 1257+12 by Wolszczan & Frail (1992) and a solar-type star 51 Peg by Mayor & Queloz (1995) opened a new era of planetary science. To date, more than 130 extrasolar planets around solar-type stars have been discovered ( †), among them 11 multiple planetary systems are confirmed.…”

Monitoring and analyzing exoplanetary transits from Argentina

“…Since the discovery of the first exoplanet, known as 51 Peg b by Mayor and Queloz (1995), the number of planets discovered in other stars has grown rapidly. Today we have ∼ 500 exoplanets detected of which ∼ 100 are transiting planets.…”