Letter to the Editor

Bayesian analysis of the radial velocities of HD 11506 reveals another planetary companion

¹ Department of Mathematics and Statistics, PO Box 68, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland e-mail: mikko.tuomi@utu.fi
² Tuorla Observatory, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Turku, 21500 Piikkiö, Finland e-mail: samuli.kotiranta@utu.fi

Received: 16 December 2008
Accepted: 14 February 2009

Abstract

Aims. We aim to demonstrate the efficiency of a Bayesian approach in analysing radial velocity data by reanalysing a set of radial velocity measurements.

Methods. We present Bayesian analysis of a recently published set of radial velocity measurements known to contain the signal of one extrasolar planetary candidate, namely, HD 11506. The analysis is conducted using the Markov chain Monte Carlo method and the resulting distributions of orbital parameters are tested by performing direct integration of randomly selected samples with the Bulirsch-Stoer method. The magnitude of the stellar radial velocity variability, known as jitter, is treated as a free parameter with no assumptions about its magnitude.

Results. We show that the orbital parameters of the planet known to be present in the data correspond to a different solution when the jitter is allowed to be a free parameter. We also show evidence of an additional candidate, a 0.8 M_Jup planet with period of about 0.5 yr in orbit around HD 11506. This second planet is inferred to be present with a high level of confidence.