V488 Per Revisited: No Strong Mid-infrared Emission Features and No Evidence for Stellar/substellar Companions

November 2021 • 2021ApJ...922...75S

Authors • Sankar, Swetha • Melis, Carl • Klein, Beth L. • Fulton, B. J. • Zuckerman, B. • Song, Inseok • Howard, Andrew W.

Abstract • We present characterization of the planetary system architecture for V488 Per, the dustiest main-sequence star known with a fractional infrared luminosity of ≈16%. Far-infrared imaging photometry confirms the existence of an outer planetary system dust population with a blackbody-fit temperature of ≈130 K. Mid-infrared spectroscopy probing the previously identified ≈800 K inner planetary system dust population does not detect any obvious solid-state emission features, suggesting either large grain sizes that mute such emission and/or grain compositions dominated by species like amorphous carbon and metallic iron, which do not produce such features. In the latter case, the presence of significant quantities of iron-rich material could be indicative of the active formation of a Mercury-like planet around V488 Per. In any event, the absence of solid-state emission features is very unusual among main-sequence stars with copious amounts of warm orbiting dust particles; we know of no other such star whose mid-infrared spectrum lacks such features. Combined radial velocity monitoring and adaptive optics imaging find no evidence for stellar/substellar companions within several hundred astronomical units of V488 Per.

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• SIMBAD http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbo.pl?bibcode=2021ApJ...922...75S
• PDF https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac19a8/pdf
• PREPRINT http://arxiv.org/abs/2108.03700
• DATA http://archives.esac.esa.int/hsa/whsa/?ACTION=PUBLICATION&ID=2021ApJ...922...75S
• DATA https://archive.stsci.edu/mastbibref.php?bibcode=2021ApJ...922...75S
• DATA https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/bibdata/2021/S/2021ApJ...922...75S.html
• ELECTR https://doi.org/10.3847%2F1538-4357%2Fac19a8