TOI-503: The First Known Brown-dwarf Am-star Binary from the TESS Mission*
Authors: Šubjak Ján , Sharma Rishikesh , Carmichael Theron W. , Johnson Marshall C. , Gonzales Erica J. , Matthews Elisabeth , Boffin Henri M. J. , Brahm Rafael , Chaturvedi Priyanka , Chakraborty Abhijit , Ciardi David R. , Collins Karen A. , Esposito Massimiliano , Fridlund Malcolm , Gan Tianjun , Gandolfi Davide , García Rafael A. , Guenther Eike , Hatzes Artie , Latham David W. , Mathis Stéphane , Mathur Savita , Persson Carina M. , Relles Howard M. , Schlieder Joshua E. , Barclay Thomas , Dressing Courtney D. , Crossfield Ian , Howard Andrew W. , Rodler Florian , Zhou George , Quinn Samuel N. , Esquerdo Gilbert A. , Calkins Michael L. , Berlind Perry , G. Stassun Keivan , Blažek Martin , Skarka Marek , Špoková Magdalena , Žák Jiří , Albrecht Simon , Sobrino Roi Alonso , Beck Paul , Cabrera Juan , Carleo Ilaria , Cochran William D. , Csizmadia Szilard , Dai Fei , Deeg Hans J. , de Leon Jerome P. , Eigmüller Philipp , Endl Michael , Erikson Anders , Fukui Akihiko , Georgieva Iskra , González-Cuesta Lucía , Grziwa Sascha , Hidalgo Diego , Hirano Teruyuki , Hjorth Maria , Knudstrup Emil , Korth Judith , Lam Kristine W. F. , Livingston John H. , Lund Mikkel N. , Luque Rafael , Rodríguez Pilar Montanes , Murgas Felipe , Narita Norio , Nespral David , Niraula Prajwal , Nowak Grzegorz , Pallé Enric , Pätzold Martin , Prieto-Arranz Jorge , Rauer Heike , Redfield Seth , Ribas Ignasi , Smith Alexis M. S. , Eylen Vincent Van , Kabáth Petr 
Published: March 2020

We report the discovery of an intermediate-mass transiting brown dwarf (BD), TOI-503b, from the TESS mission. TOI-503b is the first BD discovered by TESS, and it has circular orbit around a metallic-line A-type star with a period of P = 3.6772 ± 0.0001 days. The light curve from TESS indicates that TOI-503b transits its host star in a grazing manner, which limits the precision with which we measure the BD’s radius (

). We obtained high-resolution spectroscopic observations with the FIES, Ondřejov, PARAS, Tautenburg, and TRES spectrographs, and measured the mass of TOI-503b to be M

b
 = 53.7 ± 1.2

. The host star has a mass of M
⋆ = 1.80 ± 0.06 M
⊙, a radius of R
⋆ = 1.70 ± 0.05R
⊙, an effective temperature of T
eff = 7650 ± 160 K, and a relatively high metallicity of 0.61 ± 0.07 dex. We used stellar isochrones to derive the age of the system to be ∼180 Myr, which places its age between that of RIK 72b (a ∼10 Myr old BD in the Upper Scorpius stellar association) and AD 3116b (a ∼600 Myr old BD in the Praesepe cluster). Given the difficulty in measuring the tidal interactions between BDs and their host stars, we cannot precisely say whether this BD formed in situ or has had its orbit circularized by its host star over the relatively short age of the system. Instead, we offer an examination of plausible values for the tidal quality factor for the star and BD. TOI-503b joins a growing number of known short-period, intermediate-mass BDs orbiting main-sequence stars, and is the second such BD known to transit an A star, after HATS-70b. With the growth in the population in this regime, the driest region in the BD desert (

) is reforesting.