# A planet orbiting the star Gliese 86Based on observations collected at the La Silla Observatory, ESO Chile, with the echelle spectrograph CORALIE at the 1.2m Euler Swiss telescope

## 1 The search for extra-solar planets with CORALIE

Almost 20 planetary companions with minimum masses ($`m_2\mathrm{sin}i`$) less than 10 $`M_J`$ have so far been detected by very high-precision radial velocity surveys (Butler et al. (1999), Marcy et al. 1999a , Fischer et al. (1999) and Marcy et al. 1999b  for a review of older detections). The semi-major axes of their orbits range from very small (0.05 AU) to 3 AU. Some have eccentric orbits, others have secondary more massive companions, some have both. The large observed spread in orbital characteristics of all known planetary candidates causes some difficulties in understanding their formation process in comparison with our own solar system. It also raises the issue of the real nature of these objects, particularly the more massive ones.

In June 1998 we initiated a systematic and large scale exoplanet search survey (1600 nearby G and K stars) in the southern hemisphere with the new 1.2 m alt-azimuth Euler Swiss telescope at La Silla, ESO Chile. The technique we are using to detect planets is to look for a stellar reflex motion due to an orbiting planet by very precise radial velocity measurements. The CORALIE echelle spectrograph is used to measure star spectra from which the Doppler effect is then computed.

CORALIE is an improved version of the ELODIE spectrograph (Baranne et al. (1996)) with which, 4 years ago, the first extra-solar planet orbiting a star (51 Peg) was discovered (Mayor & Queloz (1995)). The CORALIE front-end adaptator is located at the Nasmyth focus of the Euler telescope. Two sets of two fibers can alternatively feed the spectrograph which is located in an isolated and temperature controled room. The set of fibers used for high precision radial velocity measurements includes a double scrambler device designed by Dominique Kohler (see Queloz et al. (1999) for references) to improve the stability of the input illumination of the spectrograph. Thanks to a slightly different optical combination at the entrance of the spectrograph and the use of a 2k by 2k CCD camera with smaller pixels (15$`\mu `$m), CORALIE has a larger resolution than ELODIE. A resolving power of 50,000 ($`\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda `$) is observed with a 3 pixel sampling. As with the ELODIE spectrograph, CORALIE makes use of on-line reduction software that computes the radial velocity of stars several minutes after their observation. (See Baranne et al. (1996) for details about the reduction process). The simultaneous thorium technique is used to correct any instrumental drifts occuring during the star exposure (see Queloz et al. (1999) for details). The many improvements carried out in the thermal control and the resolution of the instrument, as well as in the reduction software, yield a factor two improvement in the instrument precision compared with ELODIE.

## 2 A planet orbiting Gliese 86

Gliese 86 (HD13445, HIC 10138) is a bright ($`m_V=6.12`$) early K dwarf ($`BV=0.81`$, $`T_{\text{eff}}=5350K`$, $`\mathrm{log}(g)=4.6`$, Flynn & Morell (1997)) from the southern hemisphere, in the Eridanus (River) constellation. It is a close star, 10.9 pc away from our Sun ($`\pi =91.6`$ mas, measured by the Hipparcos satellite). Its absolute magnitude is 6.257, yielding (with $`BC=0.2`$) a luminosity $`L=0.27L_{}`$. It is a high proper motion star, slightly metal poor (\[Fe/H\]$`=0.24`$, Flynn & Morell (1997)). It has low chromospheric activity ($`\mathrm{log}R_{}^{}{}_{\text{HK}}{}^{}=4.74`$, Saar & Osten (1997)). No rotational broadening has been detected (Saar & Osten (1997)) and there is only an upper limit on the Li content in its atmosphere (N(Li)$`<0.24`$, Favata et al. (1997)). From Hipparcos photometry, the star is stable ($`\sigma (\text{H}_p)=0.008`$). In summary, Gliese 86 bears all the characteristics of a few billion year old K dwarf from the old disk population. In the H-R diagram, Gliese 86 lies slightly below the ZAMS. However we believe that there are enough uncertainties in the temperature and bolometric correction estimates of Gliese 86 – stemming from its low metal content – to believe that its location in the HR diagram below the ZAMS is not significant.

A 15.8 day period radial velocity variation has been detected from CORALIE measurements (Fig. 1). In Table 1 are listed the orbital elements of the best fit solution (least square) for an orbital motion after correction of a 0.36 m s<sup>-1</sup> d<sup>-1</sup>linear drift (see below). Assuming a 0.8$`M_{}`$ for the primary and that the radial velocity effect is caused by the orbital motion of the star, we conclude that a 4 M<sub>J</sub> companion (minimum mass) is orbiting Gliese 86.

The planetary companion to Gliese 86 is close to its host star with a 0.11 AU semi-major orbital axis. It has a low, although $`99`$% significant non-zero, eccentricity (Lucy & Sweeney (1971)). The 7 m s<sup>-1</sup>residual from the fit indicates very low intrinsic intrumental errors from night to night, taking into account that each measurement has approximately 5 m s<sup>-1</sup>photon noise error and could be affected as well by some low level radial velocity variations intrinsic to the stellar atmosphere. Such low instrumental error agrees with the instrumental error measured by $`P(\chi ^2)`$ analysis of all the stars of our sample so far observed (about 300). See Duquennoy et al. (1991) for a detailed description of the instrument error estimate by the $`P(\chi ^2)`$ statistic.

A long term drift of the radial velocity (0.5 m s<sup>-1</sup> d<sup>-1</sup>) is observed from 20 years of CORAVEL measurements (Fig. 2). With the 300 m s<sup>-1</sup>typical precision of CORAVEL radial velocities, the short orbit is marginally detected in the last measurements. Interestingly, with the recent CORALIE measurements a smaller 0.36 m s<sup>-1</sup> d<sup>-1</sup>drift is observed (Fig. 3). A statistical analysis of the reliability of the drift correction shows that an orbital solution without drift correction has 0.0001% chance to occur ($`\chi ^2210`$). The probability jumps to 40% when the linear drift correction is taken into account. A conservative 7 m s<sup>-1</sup>instrumental error is assumed for this calculation.

The period measurement of the short period planetary companion is still not accurate enough to correct the old CORAVEL data from their extra scattering and obtain a precise drift estimate from these measurements. Thus, the difference in drift slope between the old CORAVEL measurements and the recent CORALIE measurements is perhaps significant, but remains to be confirmed by further measurements during the course of the next season.

The long term radial velocity variation is the signature of a remote and more massive companion. The use of historical radial velocity data together with the CORAVEL and the CORALIE observed drifts suggest a stellar companion with a period longer than 100 yr (semi-major axis larger than 20 AU). A direct detection would be worth attempting since the star is close to us.

Alternative explanations to a low mass companion to explain the observed 15.8 day period radial velocity change of Gliese 86 would be activity related phenomena (Saar & Donahue (1997)). However Gliese 86 doesn’t exhibit any of the classical activity signatures seen on young stars, as for exemple HD166435 (Queloz et al. in prep). Gliese 86 has no chromospheric activity. No rotational broadening is detected either, and its photometry is very stable. Therefore, the planetary hypothesis is most likely the correct interpretation for the observed periodic radial velocity changes.

## 3 Discussion

The observed orbital charateristics of planets are the direct outcome of their formation processes and of their evolutions. Therefore, these characteristics may be used to retrace their formation mechanisms and to constrain theories of planetary formation. The recent spectroscopic studies of stars where planets have been detected have shown that the host star itself may also bear marks from some processes occuring during planetary formation (Gonzalez (1997)). More specifically a large number of planets with short-period orbits have surprinsingly metal rich host stars. These planets, very close to their stars, are usually referred as 51 Peg like, or “hot Jupiters”. The metallicity of their host star is much higher than the “average field star” and is not the result of a selection process in the survey samples (Marcy et al. 1999b ). Typical metallicities similar to field stars may be assumed for the stars from various surveys, since these star samples have not been selected from any metallicity criteria.

If we look in more detail at all the planets with semi-major axis less than 1 AU, where the number of detections is significant and not strongly high-mass biased, we observe a relation between the semi-major axes of the planetary orbits and the metal content of their host stars. All planets with semi-major axes less than 0.08 AU seem to have a star with an unusually very high metal content compared to other stars with planets (see Fig. 4). Actually, a comparison of the two distribution using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test indicates a 99% probability that the two distributions are indeed different.

The unusual metal content of the short orbit planets had been pointed out shortly after the detection of 51 Peg (Mayor & Queloz (1995)). But now, with the large number of detections of similar systems and others with slightly larger semi-major axes, we observe a typical distance (or period) for which this unusual high metal content is systematically observed. A possible explanation may be related to some very specific processes occuring during the formation of these very close systems. However the large incertainties on the estimation of the age of these systems and the small mass range of primaries are noteworthy. Therefore it is difficult to completely rule out a stellar population effect.

The migration theory (Lin & Papaloizou (1986), Lin et al. (1996), Ward (1997), Trilling et al. (1998)) is one of theories that has been called for to explain the existence of very close planets that were not described by the “classic” solar-system planetary formation model (Boss (1995), Lissauer (1995)). But so far, we have a poor understanding of the way the planet stops its migration. The two different metallicity distributions pointed out in this article are perhaps a new clue to a better understanding of the migration process or the likelyhood of an in-situ formation (Bodenheimer et al. (99)).

Others scenarios involving strong gravity interactions with other planets have been proposed as a possible origin for small planetary orbits (Weidenschilling & Marzari (1996), Rasio et al. (1996)). Since these models are purely driven by dynamical interactions it seems a priori difficult to expect any metallicity enhancement effect. Moreover such scenarios do not really explain the very small orbit planets like 51 Peg. However, if one believes that the high metal content of the star is the end-result of a planet swallowed by the star (Sandquist et al. (1998)), the gravity interaction is a possible means to send planets into their stars.

The precision of surveys from which the planets have been found so far has been limited to the detection of systems with a $`V_r`$-amplitude ($`K`$) larger than 25 m s<sup>-1</sup>. Therefore it is still premature to compare the mass of the two sets of planets because there is a direct relationship between the amplitude of the radial velocity curve, the semi-major axis, and the minimum mass of the planet that can be detected. However if we limit our comparison to a sample free of such bias, including planets only having semi-major axes smaller than 0.3 AU, we may be inclined to believe that metal rich stars tend to host on average less massive planets than solar stars or metal poor stars.

The distribution of mass of all planets that have been detected can also be studied with a restricted sample of planetary systems in order to avoid a biased selection towards small orbits and massive systems. We see that with a sample restricted to minimum masses greater than 1 M<sub>J</sub> and semi-major axes smaller than 1.3 AU, the number of planets per mass bin is almost constant from 1 to 5 M<sub>J</sub> and then drops suddenly for more massive companions. This reinforces the idea that a maximum planet mass may lie somewhere close to 5-7 M<sub>J</sub> as pointed out earlier by Mayor et al. (98).

New discoveries and improved detection precision will allow us to get a better picture of the relation between the mass and certain orbital characteritics of planets and some peculiarities seen in the atmosphere of their host stars. This will perhaps enhance our understanding of the mechanisms of planetary formation.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to all the staff who actively participated into the building and the rapid commissioning of the new 1.2m Euler telescope and the CORALIE echelle spectrograph at la Silla and in particular D. Huguenin, C. Maire, E. Ischi, G. Russinielo, M. Fleury. We also thanks all the staff of the Haute-Provence observatory having contributed to the construction of the spectrometer CORALIE, specially D. Kohler and D. Lacroix as well as Andre Baranne (from Marseilles Observatory) who designed the optic. We thanks N. Molawi for his help in the computation of Gliese 86 evolution tracks and P.R. Lawson for many improvements and corrections to the text. We thanks the Geneva University and the Swiss NSF (FNRS) for their continuous support for this project. Support from FCT to N.S. in the form of a scholarship is gratefully acknowledged.