Papers › Precise Dynamical Masses and Orbital Fits for β Pic b and β Pic c
Precise Dynamical Masses and Orbital Fits for β Pic b and β Pic c
G. Mirek Brandt, Timothy D. Brandt, Trent J. Dupuy, Yiting Li, Daniel Michalik
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We present a comprehensive orbital analysis to the exoplanets β Pictoris b and c that resolves previously reported tensions between the dynamical and evolutionary mass constraints on β Pic b. We use the MCMC orbit code orvara to fit fifteen years of radial velocities and relative astrometry (including recent GRAVITY measurements), absolute astrometry from Hipparcos and Gaia, and a single relative radial velocity measurement between β Pic A and b. We measure model-independent masses of 9.3^(+2.6)_(-2.5) M_(Jup) for β Pic b and 8.3±1.0 M_(Jup) for β Pic c. These masses are robust to modest changes to the input data selection. We find a well-constrained eccentricity of 0.119 ±0.008 for β Pic b, and an eccentricity of 0.21^(+0.16)_(-0.09) for β Pic c, with the two orbital planes aligned to within ∼0.5°. Both planets' masses are within ∼1σ of the predictions of hot-start evolutionary models and exclude cold starts. We validate our approach on N-body synthetic data integrated using REBOUND. We show that orvara can account for three-body effects in the β Pic system down to a level ∼5 times smaller than the GRAVITY uncertainties. Systematics in the masses and orbital parameters from orvara's approximate treatment of multiplanet orbits are a factor of ∼5 smaller than the uncertainties we derive here. Future GRAVITY observations will improve the constraints on β Pic c's mass and (especially) eccentricity, but improved constraints on the mass of β Pic b will likely require years of additional RV monitoring and improved precision from future Gaia data releases.
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