Issue |
A&A
Volume 646, February 2021
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A164 | |
Number of page(s) | 21 | |
Section | Planets and planetary systems | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202039683 | |
Published online | 25 February 2021 |
BEAST begins: sample characteristics and survey performance of the B-star Exoplanet Abundance Study★,★★
1
Institutionen för astronomi, Stockholms Universitet,
Stockholm, Sweden
e-mail: markus.janson@astro.su.se
2
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “Galileo Galilei” Università di Padova,
Padova, Italy
3
INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova,
Padova, Italy
4
Univ. Grenoble Alpes, IPAG,
Grenoble, France
5
Landessternwarte, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg,
Heidelberg, Germany
6
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena,
CA, USA
7
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester,
Rochester,
NY, USA
8
Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, LAM,
Marseille, France
9
CRAL, CNRS, Université Lyon,
Saint Genis Laval, France
10
ETH Zurich,
Zurich, Switzerland
11
Departemento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile,
Santiago, Chile
12
Center for Theoretical Astrophysics and Cosmology, Institute for Computational Science, University of Zurich,
Zurich, Switzerland
13
Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen,
Tübingen, Germany
14
Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bern,
Bern, Switzerland
15
Max Planck Institut für Astronomie,
Heidelberg, Germany
16
Leiden Observatory, Leiden University,
Leiden, The Netherlands
17
Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor,
MI, USA
18
College of Charleston,
Charleston,
SC, USA
Received:
15
October
2020
Accepted:
19
December
2020
While the occurrence rate of wide giant planets appears to increase with stellar mass at least up through the A-type regime, B-type stars have not been systematically studied in large-scale surveys so far. It therefore remains unclear up to what stellar mass this occurrence trend continues. The B-star Exoplanet Abundance Study (BEAST) is a direct imaging survey with the extreme adaptive optics instrument SPHERE, targeting 85 B-type stars in the young Scorpius-Centaurus (Sco-Cen) region with the aim to detect giant planets at wide separations and constrain their occurrence rate and physical properties. The statistical outcome of the survey will help determine if and where an upper stellar mass limit for planet formation occurs. In this work, we describe the selection and characterization of the BEAST target sample. Particular emphasis is placed on the age of each system, which is a central parameter in interpreting direct imaging observations. We implement a novel scheme for age dating based on kinematic sub-structures within Sco-Cen, which complements and expands upon previous age determinations in the literature. We also present initial results from the first epoch observations, including the detections of ten stellar companions, of which six were previously unknown. All planetary candidates in the survey will need follow up in second epoch observations, which are part of the allocated observational programme and will be executed in the near future.
Key words: planets and satellites: detection / stars: early-type / brown dwarfs
Sample tables are only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/646/A164
© ESO 2021
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