The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs

Context. The CARMENES exoplanet survey of M dwarfs has obtained more than 18 000 spectra of 329 nearby M dwarfs over the past five years as part of its guaranteed time observations (GTO) program. Aims. We determine planet occurrence rates with the 71 stars from the GTO program for which we have more than 50 observations. Methods. We use injection-and-retrieval experiments on the radial-velocity time series to measure detection probabilities. We include 27 planets in 21 planetary systems in our analysis. Results. We find 0.06−0.03+0.04 giant planets (100 M⊕ < Mpl sin i < 1000 M⊕) per star in periods of up to 1000 d, but due to a selection bias this number could be up to a factor of five lower in the whole 329-star sample. The upper limit for hot Jupiters (orbital period of less than 10 d) is 0.03 planets per star, while the occurrence rate of planets with intermediate masses (10 M⊕ < Mpl sin i < 100 M⊕) is 0.18−0.05+0.07 planets per star. Less massive planets with 1 M⊕ < Mpl sin i < 10 M⊕ are very abundant, with an estimated rate of 1.32−0.31+0.33 planets per star for periods of up to 100 d. When considering only late M dwarfs with masses M⋆ < 0.34 M⊙, planets more massive than 10 M⊕ become rare. Instead, low-mass planets with periods shorter than 10 d are significantly overabundant. Conclusions. For orbital periods shorter than 100 d, our results confirm the known stellar mass dependences from the Kepler survey: M dwarfs host fewer giant planets and at least two times more planets with Mpl sin i < 10 M⊕ than G-type stars. In contrast to previous results, planets around our sample of very low-mass stars have a higher occurrence rate in short-period orbits of less than 10 d. Our results demonstrate the need to take into account host star masses in planet formation models.

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A multi-planetary system orbiting the early-M dwarf TOI-1238

González-Álvarez

Osorio

Sanz-Forcada

et al. 2022

A&A

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Context. The number of super-Earth and Earth-mass planet discoveries has increased significantly in the last two decades thanks to the Doppler radial velocity and planetary transit observing techniques. Either technique can detect planet candidates on its own, but the power of a combined photometric and spectroscopic analysis is unique for an insightful characterization of the planets, which in turn has repercussions for our understanding of the architecture of planetary systems and, therefore, their formation and evolution. Aims. Two transiting planet candidates with super-Earth radii around the nearby (d = 70.64 ± 0.06 pc) K7–M0 dwarf star TOI-1238 were announced by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which observed the field of TOI-1238 in four different sectors. We aim to validate their planetary nature using precise radial velocities taken with the CARMENES spectrograph. Methods. We obtained 55 CARMENES radial velocity measurements that span the 11 months between 9 May 2020 and 5 April 2021. For a better characterization of the parent star’s activity, we also collected contemporaneous optical photometric observations at the Joan Oró and Sierra Nevada observatories and retrieved archival photometry from the literature. We performed a combined TESS+CARMENES photometric and spectroscopic analysis by including Gaussian processes and Keplerian orbits to account for the stellar activity and planetary signals simultaneously. Results. We estimate that TOI-1238 has a rotation period of 40 ± 5 d based on photometric and spectroscopic data. The combined analysis confirms the discovery of two transiting planets, TOI-1238 b and c, with orbital periods of 0.764597−0.000011+0.000013 d and 3.294736−0.000036+0.000034 d, masses of 3.76−1.07+1.15 M⊕ and 8.32−1.88+1.90 M⊕, and radii of 1.21−0.10+0.11 R⊕ and 2.11−0.14+0.14 R⊕. They orbit their parent star at semimajor axes of 0.0137 ± 0.0004 au and 0.036 ± 0.001 au, respectively.The two planets are placed on opposite sides of the radius valley for M dwarfs and lie between the star and the inner border of TOI-1238’s habitable zone. The inner super-Earth TOI-1238 b is one of the densest ultra-short-period planets ever discovered (ρ = 11.7−3.4+4.2 g cm−3). The CARMENES data also reveal the presence of an outer, non-transiting, more massive companion with an orbital period and radial velocity amplitude of ≥600 d and ≥70 m s−1, which implies a likely mass of M ≥ 2 √(1− e2) MJup and a separation ≥1.1 au from its parent star.

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The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs

Cited by 18 publications

References 143 publications

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