A search for transiting planets in the $\beta$ Pictoris system

Abstract

The bright $(V=3.86)$ star $\beta$ Pictoris is a nearby young star with a debris disk and gas giant exoplanet, $\beta$ Pictoris b, in a multi-decade orbit around it. Both the planet's orbit and disk are almost edge-on to our line of sight. We carry out a search for any transiting planets in the $\beta$ Pictoris system with orbits of less than 30 days that are coplanar with the planet $\beta$ Pictoris b. We search for a planetary transit using data from the BRITE-Constellation nanosatellite BRITE-Heweliusz, analyzing the photometry using the Box-Fitting Least Squares Algorithm (BLS). The sensitivity of the method is verified by injection of artificial planetary transit signals using the Bad-Ass Transit Model cAlculatioN (BATMAN) code. No planet was found in the BRITE-Constellation data set. We rule out planets larger than 0.6 ${\mathrm{R}}_{\mathrm{J}}$ for periods of less than 5 days, larger than 0.75 ${\mathrm{R}}_{\mathrm{J}}$ for periods of less than 10 days, and larger than 1.05 ${\mathrm{R}}_{\mathrm{J}}$ for periods of less than 20 days.

6 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Revisiting the pulsational characteristics of the exoplanet host star $\beta$ Pictoris
• The $\beta$ Pictoris b Hill sphere transit campaign. Paper I: Photometric limits to dust and rings
• Space Photometry with BRITE-Constellation
• Spectroscopic Transit Search: a self-calibrating method for detecting planets around bright stars
• Searching for Possible Exoplanet Transits from BRITE Data through a Machine Learning Technique
• A search for transiting companions in the J1407 (V1400 Cen) system