Discovery of a Substellar Companion to the Nearby Debris Disk Host HR 2562
Creators: name: Konopacky, Quinn M.
name: Rameau, Julien
name: Duchene, Gaspard
name: Filippazzo, Joseph C.
name: Godfrey, Paige A. Giorla
name: Marois, Christian
name: Nielsen, Eric L.
name: Pueyo, Laurent
name: Rafikov, Roman R.
name: Rice, Emily L.
name: Wang, Jason J.
name: Ammons, S. Mark
name: Bailey, Vanessa P.
name: Barman, Travis S.
name: Bulger, Joanna
name: Bruzzone, Sebastian
name: Chilcote, Jeffrey K.
name: Cotten, Tara
name: Dawson, Rebekah I.
name: De Rosa, Robert J.
name: Doyon, Rene
name: Esposito, Thomas M.
name: Fitzgerald, Michael P.
name: Follette, Katherine B.
name: Goodsell, Stephen
name: Graham, James R.
name: Greenbaum, Alexandra Z.
name: Hibon, Pascale
name: Hung, Li-Wei
name: Ingraham, Patrick
name: Kalas, Paul
name: Lafreniere, David
name: Larkin, James E.
name: Macintosh, Bruce A.
name: Maire, Jerome
name: Marchis, Franck
name: Marley, Mark S.
name: Matthews, Brenda C.
name: Metchev, Stanimir
name: Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.
name: Oppenheimer, Rebecca
name: Palmer, David W.
name: Patience, Jenny
name: Perrin, Marshall D.
name: Poyneer, Lisa A.
name: Rajan, Abhijith
name: Rantakyro, Fredrik T.
name: Savransky, Dmitry
name: Schneider, Adam C.
name: Sivaramakrishnan, Anand
name: Song, Inseok
name: Soummer, Remi
name: Thomas, Sandrine
name: Wallace, J. Kent
name: Ward-Duong, Kimberley
name: Wiktorowicz, Sloane J.
name: Wolff, Schuyler G.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2016
Subjects: subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present the discovery of a brown dwarf companion to the debris disk host star HR 2562. This object, discovered with the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), has a projected separation of 20.3$\pm$0.3 au (0.618$\pm$0.004") from the star. With the high astrometric precision afforded by GPI, we have confirmed common proper motion of HR 2562B with the star with only a month time baseline between observations to more than $5σ$. Spectral data in $J$, $H$, and $K$ bands show morphological similarity to L/T transition objects. We assign a spectral type of L7$\pm$3 to HR 2562B, and derive a luminosity of $\log$(L$_{\rm bol}$/L$_{\odot}$)=-4.62$\pm$0.12, corresponding to a mass of 30$\pm$15 M$_{\rm Jup}$ from evolutionary models at an estimated age of the system of 300-900 Myr. Although the uncertainty in the age of the host star is significant, the spectra and photometry exhibit several indications of youth for HR 2562B. The source has a position angle consistent with an orbit in the same plane as the debris disk recently resolved with Herschel. Additionally, it appears to be interior to the debris disk. Though the extent of the inner hole is currently too uncertain to place limits on the mass of HR 2562B, future observations of the disk with higher spatial resolution may be able to provide mass constraints. This is the first brown dwarf-mass object found to reside in the inner hole of a debris disk, offering the opportunity to search for evidence of formation above the deuterium burning limit in a circumstellar disk.
description: 10 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters