Multiplanet system imaged at HR 8799

Lazarus wrote:Yeah, the Gemini telescope image does not show planet d: looks like it's hidden behind the occulter.

(Note also the orbital motion for planet d is not shown - it was only detected in the Keck image)

Lazarus wrote:not sure if any statistically-significant orbital motion has been observed.

The Paper wrote:HR 8799d was first detected in the July 2008 data set. The two months of available proper motion measurements are sufficient to confirm that it is bound to the star at the ~6 sigma level. The available data is also consistent with a counter-clockwise orbital motion of 42 ±27 mas/year (1.65 AU/year). For a semi-major axis of 24 AU, the orbital period is 100 years and the expected orbital motion is 1.57 AU/year (40 mas/year).

C. Marois et al. wrote:Direct imaging of exoplanetary systems is a powerful technique that can reveal Jupiter-like planets in wide orbits, can enable detailed characterization of planetary atmospheres, and is a key step towards imaging Earth-like planets. Imaging detections are challenging due to the combined effect of small angular separation and large luminosity contrast between a planet and its host star. High-contrast observations with the Keck and Gemini telescopes have revealed three planets orbiting the star HR 8799, with projected separations of 24, 38, and 68 astronomical units. Multi-epoch data show counter-clockwise orbital motion for all three imaged planets. The low luminosity of the companions and the estimated age of the system imply planetary masses between 5 and 13 times that of Jupiter. This system resembles a scaled-up version of the outer portion of our Solar System.

Abstract wrote:A new era of directly imaged extrasolar planets has produced a three-planet system (Marois et al. 2008), where the masses of the planets have been estimated by untested cooling models. We point out that the nominal circular, face-on orbits of the planets lead to a dynamical instability in ~1e5 yr, a factor of at least 100 shorter than the estimated age of the star. Relaxing the face-on assumption, but still requiring circular orbits while fitting the observed positions, makes the problem even worse. Keeping the nominal orbits, but reducing the planetary masses, allows stability only for unreasonably small (<~ 2 MJup) planetary masses. A suite of numerical integrations shows the system can only survive until now if the inner two planets have a 2:1 commensurability between their periods, avoiding close encounters with each other through this resonance. This resonance implies the inner planet is eccentric (e>0.04) and that its current velocity is smaller than the nominal circular orbit, which can be confirmed with several more years of observations. That the resonance has lasted until now, in spite of the perturbations of the outer planet, leads to a limit <~10 MJup on the masses of the outer two planets. This constraint rules out certain versions of the core accretion hypothesis, and favors hot-start cooling models. If the outer two planets are also engaged in a 2:1 mean-motion resonance, which is consistent with the current data, the system could last until now even if the planets have masses of ~20 MJup.

Abstract wrote:We perform a dynamical analysis of available observations gathered during imaging campaigns by Marois et al. (2008). The preliminary orbital solutions of this three-planet system involving massive objects of 10 Jupiter-masses each lead to strongly unstable configurations. Although the semimajor axes are large (about of 24, 36 and 68 AU, respectively), the planets are heavily interacting and their orbits are located in a zone spanned by numerous low-order mean motion resonances. Constraining the initial conditions by the available imaging observations and the requirement of dynamical stability (the Copernican Principle), we search for the long-term stable configurations, living at least for a time comparable with the parent star life-time (100 Myr). We also test a hypothesis of yet undetected fourth planet that could be hidden in the coronagraph images and that could stabilize the whole system.

Abstract wrote:Three planets have been directly imaged around the young star HR 8799. The planets are 5-13 Mjup and orbit the star at projected separations of 24-68 AU. While the initial detection occurred in 2007, two of the planets were recovered in a re-analysis of data obtained in 2004. Here we present a detection of the furthest planet of that system, HR 8799 b, in archival HST/NICMOS data from 1998. The detection was made using the locally-optimized combination of images algorithm to construct, from a large set of HST/NICMOS images of different stars taken from the archive, an optimized reference point-spread function image used to subtract the light of the primary star from the images of HR 8799. This new approach improves the sensitivity to planets at small separations by a factor of ~10 compared to traditional roll deconvolution. The new detection provides an astrometry point 10 years before the most recent observations, and is consistent with a Keplerian circular orbit with a~70 AU and low orbital inclination. The new photometry point, in the F160W filter, is in good agreement with an atmosphere model with intermediate clouds and vertical stratification, and thus suggests the presence of significant water absorption in the planet's atmosphere. The success of the new approach used here highlights a path for the search and characterization of exoplanets with future space telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope or a Terrestrial Planet Finder.

Abstract wrote:The discovery of three planetary companions around HR 8799 (Marois et al. 2008) marked a significant epoch in direct imaging of extrasolar planets. Given the importance of this system, we re-analyzed H band images of HR 8799 obtained with the Subaru 36-elements adaptive optics (AO) in July 2002. The low-order AO imaging combined with the classical PSF-subtraction methods even revealed the extrasolar planet, HR 8799b. Our observations in 2002 confirmed that it has been orbiting HR 8799 in a counter-clockwise direction. The flux of HR 8799b was consistent with those in the later epochs within the uncertainty of 0.25 mag, further supporting the planetary mass estimate by Marois et al. (2008).

Abstract wrote:The recent discovery of a three-planet extrasolar system of HR 8799 by Marois et al. is a breakthrough in the field of the direct imaging. This great achievement raises questions on the formation and dynamical stability of the HR 8799 system, because Keplerian fits to astrometric data are strongly unstable during ~0.2Myr. We search for stable, self-consistent N-body orbits with the so called GAMP method that incorporates stability constraints into the optimization algorithm. Our searches reveal only small regions of stable motions in the phase space of three-planet, coplanar configurations. Most likely, if the planetary masses are in 10-Jupiter-mass range, they may be stable only if the planets are involved in two- or three-body mean motion resonances (MMRs). We found that 80% systems found by GAMP that survived 30Myr backwards integrations, eventually become unstable after 100Myr. It could mean that the HR 8799 system undergo a phase of planet-planet scattering. We test a hypothesis that the less certain detection of the innermost object is due to a blending effect. In such a case, two-planet best-fit systems are mostly stable, on quasi-circular orbits and close to the 5:2 MMR, resembling the Jupiter-Saturn pair.

Abstract wrote:The extrasolar planetary system around HR 8799 is the first multiplanet system ever imaged. It is also, by a wide margin, the highest mass system with >27 Jupiters of planetary mass past 25 AU. This is a remarkable system with no analogue with any other known planetary system. In the first part of this paper we investigate the nature of two faint objects imaged near the system. These objects are considerably fainter (H=20.4, and 21.6 mag) and more distant (projected separations of 612, and 534 AU) than the three known planetary companions b, c, and d (68-24 AU). It is possible that these two objects could be lower mass planets (of mass ~5 and ~3 Jupiters) that have been scattered to wider orbits. We make the first direct comparison of newly reduced archival Gemini adaptive optics images to archival HST/NICMOS images. With nearly a decade between these epochs we can accurately assess the proper motion nature of each candidate companion. We find that both objects are unbound to HR 8799 and are background. We estimate that HR 8799 has no companions of H<22 from ~5-15 arcsec. Any scattered giant planets in the HR 8799 system are >600 AU or less than 3 Jupiters in mass. In the second part of this paper we carry out a search for wider common proper motion objects. While we identify no bound companions to HR 8799, our search yields 16 objects within 1 degree in the NOMAD catalog and POSS DSS images with similar (+/-20 mas/yr) proper motions to HR 8799, three of which warrant follow-up observations.