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Title: Evidence That the Directly Imaged Planet HD 131399 Ab Is a Background Star

Journal Article · · The Astronomical Journal (Online)
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  1. Carl Sagan Center, Mountain View, CA (United States). SETI Inst.; Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. of Montreal, QC (Canada)
  4. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab. (JPL)
  5. National Research Council of Canada, Victoria, BC (Canada); Univ. of Victoria, BC (Canada)
  6. Aix Marseille Univ. (France). Lab. d’Astrophysique de Marseille
  7. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  8. Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
  9. Carl Sagan Center, Mountain View, CA (United States). SETI Inst.; Stanford Univ., CA (United States); Brown Univ., Providence, RI (United States)
  10. National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), Hilo, HI (United States). Subaru Telescope
  11. Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada)
  12. Univ. of Georgia, Athens, GA (United States)
  13. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. Grenoble Alpes/CNRS, Grenoble (France)
  14. Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
  15. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  16. Merrill Science Center, Amherst, MA (United States)
  17. Gemini Observatory, Hilo, HI (United States)
  18. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  19. Gemini Observatory, La Serena (Chile)
  20. Univ. of Exeter (United Kingdom)
  21. Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, Tucson, AZ (United States)
  22. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  23. Carl Sagan Center, Mountain View, CA (United States). SETI Inst.; Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  24. Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
  25. Carl Sagan Center, Mountain View, CA (United States). SETI Inst.
  26. Univ. of Western Ontario, London, ON (Canada); Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States)
  27. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
  28. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
  29. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY (United States)
  30. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)
  31. Space Telescope Science Inst., Baltimore, MD (United States)
  32. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom); Inst. for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ (United States)
  33. Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
  34. Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Herein we present evidence that the recently discovered, directly imaged planet HD 131399 Ab is a background star with nonzero proper motion. From new JHK1L' photometry and spectroscopy obtained with the Gemini Planet Imager, VLT/SPHERE, and Keck/NIRC2, and a reanalysis of the discovery data obtained with VLT/SPHERE, we derive colors, spectra, and astrometry for HD 131399 Ab. The broader wavelength coverage and higher data quality allow us to reinvestigate its status. Its near-infrared spectral energy distribution excludes spectral types later than L0 and is consistent with a K or M dwarf, which are the most likely candidates for a background object in this direction at the apparent magnitude observed. If it were a physically associated object, the projected velocity of HD 131399 Ab would exceed escape velocity given the mass and distance to HD 131399 A. We show that HD 131399 Ab is also not following the expected track for a stationary background star at infinite distance. Solving for the proper motion and parallax required to explain the relative motion of HD 131399 Ab, we find a proper motion of 12.3 mas yr–1. When compared to predicted background objects drawn from a galactic model, we find this proper motion to be high but consistent with the top 4% fastest-moving background stars. From our analysis, we conclude that HD 131399 Ab is a background K or M dwarf.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Contributing Organization:
The GPIES Team
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344; 51378.01-A; NAS5-26555; AST-1411868; AST-141378; AST-1518332; NNX14AJ80G; NNX15AC89G; NNX15AD95G; NNX16AD44G
OSTI ID:
1597225
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-804134; 1007285; TRN: US2103054
Journal Information:
The Astronomical Journal (Online), Vol. 154, Issue 6; ISSN 1538-3881
Publisher:
IOP Publishing - AAASCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 26 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (11)

The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey: Dynamical Mass of the Exoplanet β Pictoris b from Combined Direct Imaging and Astrometry journal January 2020
A Bayesian Framework for Exoplanet Direct Detection and Non-detection journal October 2018
A HARPS RV search for planets around young nearby stars journal January 2020
The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey: Giant Planet and Brown Dwarf Demographics from 10 to 100 au text January 2019
The Updated Multiple Star Catalog journal February 2018
The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey: Giant Planet and Brown Dwarf Demographics from 10 to 100 au journal June 2019
Discovery of a point-like source and a third spiral arm in the transition disk around the Herbig Ae star MWC 758 journal March 2018
Occurrence Rates from Direct Imaging Surveys book January 2018
The exoplanet handbook: Book Review journal March 2012
The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey: Dynamical Mass of the Exoplanet beta Pictoris b from Combined Direct Imaging and Astrometry text January 2019
A HARPS RV search for planets around young nearby stars text January 2019

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
astrometry
instrumentation: adaptive optics
planets and satellites: detection
stars: individual (HD 131399)
techniques: image processing
techniques: spectroscopic