A Distance-Limited Imaging Survey of Sub-Stellar Companions to Solar Neighborhood Stars

Abstract

We report techniques and results of a Palomar 200-inch (5 m) adaptive optics imaging survey of sub-stellar companions to solar-type stars. The survey consists of Ks coronagraphic observations of 21 FGK dwarfs out to 20 pc (median distance about 17 pc). At 1-arcsec separation (17 projected AU) from a typical target system, the survey achieves median sensitivities 7 mag fainter than the parent star. In terms of companion mass, that corresponds to sensitivities of 50MJ (1 Gyr), 70MJ (solar age), and 75MJ (10 Gyr), using the evolutionary models of Baraffe and colleagues. Using common proper motion to distinguish companions from field stars, we find that no system shows positive evidence of a previously unknown substellar companion (searchable separation about 20-250 projected AU at the median target distance).

arXiv comment29 pages, 5 figures. Carson et al. 2008, AJ, in press

References in corpus (19)

• Evolutionary models for cool brown dwarfs and extrasolar giant planets. The case of HD 20945
• Improved Age Estimation for Solar-Type Dwarfs Using Activity-Rotation Diagnostics
• Towards Spectral Classification of L and T Dwarfs: Infrared and Optical Spectroscopy and Analysis
• The Spectra of T Dwarfs I: Near-Infrared Data and Spectral Classification
• The Gemini Deep Planet Survey -- GDPS
• Infrared Photometry of Late-M, L, and T Dwarfs
• The Missing Link: Early Methane ("T") Dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Discovery of a Field Methane Dwarf from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data
• T Dwarfs and the Substellar Mass Function. I. Monte Carlo Simulations
• Hokupa'a-Gemini Discovery of Two Ultracool Companions to the Young Star HD 130948
• A Methane Isolated Planetary Mass Object in Orion
• The Discovery of a Second Field Methane Brown Dwarf from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data
• An Infrared Coronagraphic Survey for Substellar Companions
• Discovery of a Bright Field Methane (T-type) Brown Dwarf by 2MASS
• Constraints on Extrasolar Planet Populations from VLT NACO/SDI and MMT SDI and Direct Adaptive Optics Imaging Surveys: Giant Planets are Rare at Large Separations
• Initial Results from the Palomar Adaptive Optics Survey of Young Solar-Type Stars: a Brown Dwarf and Three Stellar Companions
• The 2MASS Wide-Field T Dwarf Search. II. Discovery of Three T Dwarfs in the Southern Hemisphere
• The Cornell High-order Adaptive Optics Survey for Brown Dwarfs in Stellar Systems-I: Observations, Data Reduction, and Detection Analysis
• The Cornell High-order Adaptive Optics Survey for Brown Dwarfs in Stellar Systems-II: Results from Monte Carlo Population Analyses

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Low-Mass Tertiary Companions to Spectroscopic Binaries I: Common Proper Motion Survey for Wide Companions using 2MASS
• Discovery of the Coldest Imaged Companion of a Sun-Like Star
• The International Deep Planet Survey II: The frequency of directly imaged giant exoplanets with stellar mass
• Discovery of the benchmark metal poor T8 dwarf BD+01 2920B
• Direct Imaging Constraints on the Putative Exoplanet 14 Her c
• The Lyot Project Direct Imaging Survey of Substellar Companions: Statistical Analysis and Information from Nondetections
• Multiplicity of stars with planets in the solar neighbourhood
• Formation, evolution and multiplicity of brown dwarfs and giant exoplanets
• 14 Her: a likely case of planet-planet scattering