Three low-mass companions around aged stars discovered by TESS

August 2023 • 2023MNRAS.523.6162L

Authors • Lin, Zitao • Gan, Tianjun • Wang, Sharon X. • Shporer, Avi • Rabus, Markus • Zhou, George • Psaridi, Angelica • Bouchy, François • Bieryla, Allyson • Latham, David W. • Mao, Shude • Stassun, Keivan G. • Hellier, Coel • Howell, Steve B. • Ziegler, Carl • Caldwell, Douglas A. • Clark, Catherine A. • Collins, Karen A. • Curtis, Jason L. • Faherty, Jacqueline K. • Gnilka, Crystal L. • Grunblatt, Samuel K. • Jenkins, Jon M. • Johnson, Marshall C. • Law, Nicholas • Lendl, Monika • Littlefield, Colin • Lund, Michael B. • Lund, Mikkel N. • Mann, Andrew W. • McDermott, Scott • Mishra, Lokesh • Mounzer, Dany • Paegert, Martin • Pritchard, Tyler • Ricker, George R. • Seager, Sara • Srdoc, Gregor • Sun, Qinghui • Tang, Jiaxin • Udry, Stéphane • Vanderspek, Roland • Watanabe, David • Winn, Joshua N. • Yu, Jie

Abstract • We report the discovery of three transiting low-mass companions to aged stars: a brown dwarf (TOI-2336b) and two objects near the hydrogen burning mass limit (TOI-1608b and TOI-2521b). These three systems were first identified using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). TOI-2336b has a radius of 1.05 ± 0.04 R_J, a mass of 69.9 ± 2.3 M_J and an orbital period of 7.71 d. TOI-1608b has a radius of 1.21 ± 0.06 R_J, a mass of 90.7 ± 3.7 M_J and an orbital period of 2.47 d. TOI-2521b has a radius of 1.01 ± 0.04 R_J, a mass of 77.5 ± 3.3 M_J, and an orbital period of 5.56 d. We found all these low-mass companions are inflated. We fitted a relation between radius, mass, and incident flux using the sample of known transiting brown dwarfs and low-mass M dwarfs. We found a positive correlation between the flux and the radius for brown dwarfs and for low-mass stars that is weaker than the correlation observed for giant planets. We also found that TOI-1608 and TOI-2521 are very likely to be spin-orbit synchronized, leading to the unusually rapid rotation of the primary stars considering their evolutionary stages. Our estimates indicate that both systems have much shorter spin-orbit synchronization time-scales compared to their ages. These systems provide valuable insights into the evolution of stellar systems with brown dwarf and low-mass stellar companions influenced by tidal effects.

Links

• PDF https://academic.oup.com/mnras/pdf-lookup/doi/10.1093/mnras/stad1745
• PREPRINT http://arxiv.org/abs/2210.13939
• DATA https://archive.gemini.edu/searchform/publication=2023MNRAS.523.6162L
• ELECTR https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fmnras%2Fstad1745