A Radial Velocity Study of the Planetary System of Pi Mensae: Improved Planet Parameters for PI Mensae c and a Third Planet on a 125-d Orbit
astro-ph.EP
/ Authors
Artie P. Hatzes, Davide Gandolfi, Judith Korth, Florian Rodler, Silvia Sabotta, Massimiliano Esposito, Oscar Barragan, Vincent Van Eylen John H. Livingston, Luisa Maria Serrano, Rafael Luque
and 26 more authors
Alexis M. S. Smith, Seth Redfield, Carina M. Persson, Martin Paetzold, Enric Palle, Grzegorz Nowak, Hannah L. M. Osborne, Norio Narita, Savita Mathur, Kristine W. F. Lam, Petr Kabath, Marshall C. Johnson, Eike W. Guenther, Sascha Grziwa, Elisa Goffo, Malcolm Fridlund, Michael Endl, Hans J. Deeg, Szilard Csizmadia, William D. Cochran, Lucia Gonzalez Cuesta, Priyanka Chaturvedi
/ Abstract
Pi Men hosts a transiting planet detected by the TESS space mission and an outer planet in a 5.7-yr orbit discovered by RV surveys. We studied this system using new radial velocity (RV) measurements taken with the HARPS spectrograph on ESO's 3.6-m telescope as well as archival data. We constrain the stellar RV semi-amplitude due to the transiting planet, Pi Men c, as K_c = 1.21 +/- 0.12 m/s resulting in a planet mass of M_c = 3.63 +/- 0.38 M_Earth. A planet radius of R_c= 2.145 +/- 0.015 R_Earth yields a bulk density of rho = 2.03 +/- 0.22 g/cm^{-3}. The precisely determined density of this planet and the brightness of the host star make Pi Men c an excellent laboratory for internal structure and atmospheric characterization studies. Our HARPS RV measurements also reveal compelling evidence for a third body, PI Men d, with a minimum mass M sin i = 13.38 +/- 1.35 M_Earth orbiting with a period of P_d = 125 d on an eccentric orbit (e = 0.22). A simple dynamical analysis indicates that the orbit of Pi Men d is stable on timescales of at least 20 Myrs. Given the mutual inclination between the outer gaseous giant and the inner rocky planet and the presence of a third body at 125 d, Pi Men is an important planetary system for dynamical and formation studies.