Search for giant planets around seven white dwarfs in the Hyades cluster with the Hubble Space Telescope

Abstract

Only a small number of exoplanets has been identified in stellar cluster environments. We initiated a high angular resolution direct imaging search using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and its NICMOS instrument for self-luminous giant planets in orbit around seven white dwarfs in the 625 Myr old nearby (45 pc) Hyades cluster. The observations were obtained with NIC1 in the F110W and F160W filters, and encompass two HST roll angles to facilitate angular differential imaging. The difference images were searched for companion candidates, and radially averaged contrast curves were computed. Though we achieve the lowest mass detection limits yet for angular separations >0.5 arcsec, no planetary mass companion to any of the seven white dwarfs, whose initial main sequence masses were >2.8 Msun, was found. Comparison with evolutionary models yields detection limits of 5 to 7 Jupiter masses according to one model, and between 9 and 12 Mjup according to another model, at physical separations corresponding to initial semimajor axis of >5 to 8 A.U. (i.e., before the mass loss events associated with the red and asymptotic giant branch phase of the host star). The study provides further evidence that initially dense cluster environments, which included O- and B-type stars, might not be highly conducive to the formation of massive circumstellar disks, and their transformation into giant planets (with m>6 Mjup and a>6 A.U.). This is in agreement with radial velocity surveys for exoplanets around G- and K-type giants, which did not find any planets around stars more massive than about 3 Msun.

6 pages, 3 figures; https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/staa3422/5956540

References in corpus (16)

• The Gaia mission
• Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting the Star HR 8799
• Planet formation around stars of various masses: The snow line and the frequency of giant planets
• The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey: Giant Planet and Brown Dwarf Demographics From 10-100 AU
• Precise Radial Velocities of Giant Stars VII. Occurrence Rate of Giant Extrasolar Planets as a Function of Mass and Metallicity
• Discovery of a warm, dusty giant planet around HIP65426
• A Giant Planet Candidate Transiting a White Dwarf
• Accretion of a giant planet onto a white dwarf
• Signs of a faint disc population at polluted white dwarfs
• Spitzer IRAC Observations of White Dwarfs. II. Massive Planetary and Cold Brown Dwarf Companions to Young and Old Degenerates
• Compositions of Planetary Debris around Dusty White Dwarfs
• Stellar rotational periods in the planet hosting open cluster Praesepe
• Finding Planets Around White Dwarf Remnants of Massive Stars
• An Extreme-AO Search for Giant Planets around a White Dwarf --VLT/SPHERE performance on a faint target GD 50
• Masses of the Hyades white dwarfs: A gravitational redshift measurement
• Search for Giant Planets around White Dwarfs with HST, Spitzer, and VLT

Cited by in corpus (6)

• I Spy Transits and Pulsations: Empirical Variability in White Dwarfs Using Gaia and the Zwicky Transient Facility
• A New Method for Finding Nearby White Dwarf Exoplanets and Detecting Biosignatures
• Secular chaos in white-dwarf planetary systems: origins of metal pollution and short-period planetary companions
• On the pollution of white dwarfs by exo-Oort cloud comets
• A candidate giant planet companion to the massive, young white dwarf GALEX J071816.4+373139 informs the occurrence of giant planets orbiting B stars
• Synthetic X-ray emission from white dwarf accreting planetary material