The First Dynamical Mass Measurement in the HR 8799 System [EPA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2105.12820


HR 8799 hosts four directly imaged giant planets, but none has a mass measured from first principles. We present the first dynamical mass measurement in this planetary system, finding that the innermost planet HR~8799~e has a mass of $9.6^{+1.9}{-1.8} \, M{\rm Jup}$. This mass results from combining the well-characterized orbits of all four planets with a new astrometric acceleration detection (5$\sigma$) from the Gaia EDR3 version of the Hipparcos-Gaia Catalog of Accelerations. We find with 95\% confidence that HR~8799~e is below $13\, M_{\rm Jup}$, the deuterium-fusing mass limit. We derive a hot-start cooling age of $42^{+24}{-16}$\,Myr for HR~8799~e that agrees well with its hypothesized membership in the Columba association but is also consistent with an alternative suggested membership in the $\beta$~Pictoris moving group. We exclude the presence of any additional $\gtrsim$5-$M{\rm Jup}$ planets interior to HR~8799~e with semi-major axes between $\approx$3-16\,au. We provide proper motion anomalies and a matrix equation to solve for the mass of any of the planets of HR~8799 using only mass ratios between the planets.

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G. Brandt, T. Brandt, T. Dupuy, et. al.
Fri, 28 May 21
45/56

Comments: Accepted to ApJ Letters