The NASA-UC-UH Eta-Earth Program: IV. A Low-mass Planet Orbiting an M Dwarf 3.6 PC from Earth

Andrew W. Howard, Geoffrey W. Marcy, Debra A. Fischer, Howard Isaacson, Philip S. Muirhead, Gregory W. Henry, Tabetha S. Boyajian, Kaspar von Braun, Juliette C. Becker, Jason T. Wright, John Asher Johnson (Submitted on 25 Aug 2014)

We report the discovery of a low-mass planet orbiting Gl 15 A based on radial velocities from the Eta-Earth Survey using HIRES at Keck Observatory. Gl 15 Ab is a planet with minimum mass Msini = 5.35 ± 0.75 M⊕ , orbital period P = 11.4433 ± 0.0016 days, and an orbit that is consistent with circular. We characterize the host star using a variety of techniques. Photometric observations at Fairborn Observatory show no evidence for rotational modulation of spots at the orbital period to a limit of ~0.1 mmag, thus supporting the existence of the planet. We detect a second RV signal with a period of 44 days that we attribute to rotational modulation of stellar surface features, as confirmed by optical photometry and the Ca II H & K activity indicator. Using infrared spectroscopy from Palomar-TripleSpec, we measure an M2 V spectral type and a sub-solar metallicity ([M/H] = -0.22, [Fe/H] = -0.32). We measure a stellar radius of 0.3863 ± 0.0021 R? based on interferometry from CHARA.

Comments:

ApJ accepted, 11 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables

Subjects:

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

Cite as:

arXiv:1408.5645 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1408.5645v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)

Submission history

From: Andrew Howard [view email] 

[v1] Mon, 25 Aug 2014 00:31:16 GMT (230kb)

http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.5645