A planet within the debris disk around the pre-main-sequence star AU Microscopii

June 2020 • 2020Natur.582..497P

Authors • Plavchan, Peter • Barclay, Thomas • Gagné, Jonathan • Gao, Peter • Cale, Bryson • Matzko, William • Dragomir, Diana • Quinn, Sam • Feliz, Dax • Stassun, Keivan • Crossfield, Ian J. M. • Berardo, David A. • Latham, David W. • Tieu, Ben • Anglada-Escudé, Guillem • Ricker, George • Vanderspek, Roland • Seager, Sara • Winn, Joshua N. • Jenkins, Jon M. • Rinehart, Stephen • Krishnamurthy, Akshata • Dynes, Scott • Doty, John • Adams, Fred • Afanasev, Dennis A. • Beichman, Chas • Bottom, Mike • Bowler, Brendan P. • Brinkworth, Carolyn • Brown, Carolyn J. • Cancino, Andrew • Ciardi, David R. • Clampin, Mark • Clark, Jake T. • Collins, Karen • Davison, Cassy • Foreman-Mackey, Daniel • Furlan, Elise • Gaidos, Eric J. • Geneser, Claire • Giddens, Frank • Gilbert, Emily • Hall, Ryan • Hellier, Coel • Henry, Todd • Horner, Jonathan • Howard, Andrew W. • Huang, Chelsea • Huber, Joseph • Kane, Stephen R. • Kenworthy, Matthew • Kielkopf, John • Kipping, David • Klenke, Chris • Kruse, Ethan • Latouf, Natasha • Lowrance, Patrick • Mennesson, Bertrand • Mengel, Matthew • Mills, Sean M. • Morton, Tim • Narita, Norio • Newton, Elisabeth • Nishimoto, America • Okumura, Jack • Palle, Enric • Pepper, Joshua • Quintana, Elisa V. • Roberge, Aki • Roccatagliata, Veronica • Schlieder, Joshua E. • Tanner, Angelle • Teske, Johanna • Tinney, C. G. • Vanderburg, Andrew • von Braun, Kaspar • Walp, Bernie • Wang, Jason • Wang, Sharon Xuesong • Weigand, Denise • White, Russel • Wittenmyer, Robert A. • Wright, Duncan J. • Youngblood, Allison • Zhang, Hui • Zilberman, Perri

Abstract • AU Microscopii (AU Mic) is the second closest pre-main-sequence star, at a distance of 9.79 parsecs and with an age of 22 million years¹. AU Mic possesses a relatively rare² and spatially resolved³ edge-on debris disk extending from about 35 to 210 astronomical units from the star⁴, and with clumps exhibiting non-Keplerian motion^5-7. Detection of newly formed planets around such a star is challenged by the presence of spots, plage, flares and other manifestations of magnetic `activity' on the star^8,9. Here we report observations of a planet transiting AU Mic. The transiting planet, AU Mic b, has an orbital period of 8.46 days, an orbital distance of 0.07 astronomical units, a radius of 0.4 Jupiter radii, and a mass of less than 0.18 Jupiter masses at 3σ confidence. Our observations of a planet co-existing with a debris disk offer the opportunity to test the predictions of current models of planet formation and evolution.

Links

• SIMBAD http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbo.pl?bibcode=2020Natur.582..497P
• PREPRINT http://arxiv.org/abs/2006.13248
• DATA http://archive.eso.org/bin/ads2eso?2020Natur.582..497P
• DATA http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/DisplayOverview/nph-DisplayOverview?type=REFERENCE&bibcode=2020Natur.582..497P
• DATA https://archive.stsci.edu/mastbibref.php?bibcode=2020Natur.582..497P
• DATA https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/bibdata/2020/P/2020Natur.582..497P.html
• ELECTR https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fs41586-020-2400-z