VLTI/GRAVITY Provides Evidence the Young, Substellar Companion HD 136164 Ab formed like a "Failed Star"
arXiv:2312.08283
Abstract
Young, low-mass Brown Dwarfs orbiting early-type stars, with low mass ratios (), appear intrinsically rare and present a formation dilemma: could a handful of these objects be the highest mass outcomes of ``planetary" formation channels (bottom up within a protoplanetary disk), or are they more representative of the lowest mass ``failed binaries" (formed via disk fragmentation, or core fragmentation)? Additionally, their orbits can yield model-independent dynamical masses, and when paired with wide wavelength coverage and accurate system age estimates, can constrain evolutionary models in a regime where the models have a wide dispersion depending on initial conditions. We present new interferometric observations of the substellar companion HD~136164~Ab (HIP~75056~Ab) with VLTI/GRAVITY and an updated orbit fit including proper motion measurements from the Hipparcos-Gaia Catalogue of Accelerations. We estimate a dynamical mass of (), making HD~136164~Ab the youngest substellar companion with a dynamical mass estimate. The new mass and newly constrained orbital eccentricity () and separation () could indicate that the companion formed via the low-mass tail of the Initial Mass Function. Our atmospheric fit to the \texttt{SPHINX} M-dwarf model grid suggests a sub-solar C/O ratio of , and solar metallicity, which could indicate formation in the circumstellar disk via disk fragmentation. Either way, the revised mass estimate likely excludes ``bottom-up" formation via core accretion in the circumstellar disk. HD~136164~Ab joins a select group of young substellar objects with dynamical mass estimates; epoch astrometry from future \textit{Gaia} data releases will constrain the dynamical mass of this crucial object further.
Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal. 9 figures, 3 tables