Direct Imaging of an Asymmetric Debris Disk in the HD 106906 Planetary System

November 2015 • 2015ApJ...814...32K

Authors • Kalas, Paul G. • Rajan, Abhijith • Wang, Jason J. • Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A. • Duchene, Gaspard • Chen, Christine • Fitzgerald, Michael P. • Dong, Ruobing • Graham, James R. • Patience, Jennifer • Macintosh, Bruce • Murray-Clay, Ruth • Matthews, Brenda • Rameau, Julien • Marois, Christian • Chilcote, Jeffrey • De Rosa, Robert J. • Doyon, René • Draper, Zachary H. • Lawler, Samantha • Ammons, S. Mark • Arriaga, Pauline • Bulger, Joanna • Cotten, Tara • Follette, Katherine B. • Goodsell, Stephen • Greenbaum, Alexandra • Hibon, Pascale • Hinkley, Sasha • Hung, Li-Wei • Ingraham, Patrick • Konapacky, Quinn • Lafreniere, David • Larkin, James E. • Long, Douglas • Maire, Jérôme • Marchis, Franck • Metchev, Stan • Morzinski, Katie M. • Nielsen, Eric L. • Oppenheimer, Rebecca • Perrin, Marshall D. • Pueyo, Laurent • Rantakyrö, Fredrik T. • Ruffio, Jean-Baptiste • Saddlemyer, Leslie • Savransky, Dmitry • Schneider, Adam C. • Sivaramakrishnan, Anand • Soummer, Rémi • Song, Inseok • Thomas, Sandrine • Vasisht, Gautam • Ward-Duong, Kimberly • Wiktorowicz, Sloane J. • Wolff, Schuyler G.

Abstract • We present the first scattered light detections of the HD 106906 debris disk using the Gemini/Gemini Planet Imager in the infrared and Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Advanced Camera for Surveys in the optical. HD 106906 is a 13 Myr old F5V star in the Sco-Cen association, with a previously detected planet-mass candidate HD 106906b projected 650 AU from the host star. Our observations reveal a near edge-on debris disk that has a central cleared region with radius ∼50 AU, and an outer extent >500 AU. The HST data show that the outer regions are highly asymmetric, resembling the “needle” morphology seen for the HD 15115 debris disk. The planet candidate is oriented ∼21° away from the position angle of the primary’s debris disk, strongly suggesting non-coplanarity with the system. We hypothesize that HD 106906b could be dynamically involved in the perturbation of the primary’s disk, and investigate whether or not there is evidence for a circumplanetary dust disk or cloud that is either primordial or captured from the primary. We show that both the existing optical properties and near-infrared colors of HD 106906b are weakly consistent with this possibility, motivating future work to test for the observational signatures of dust surrounding the planet.

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Alexandra Greenbaum

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