Extremely Large Telescope

Abstract:

We report the direct imaging discovery of a third exoplanet in the β Pictoris (β Pic) system. We detect β Pictoris d (β Pic d) in noncoronagraphic observations obtained with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS), as well as multi-epoch archival datasets from the JWST Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and VLT/SPHERE. Astrometric measurements over an 11 yr baseline demonstrate that it is consistent with a gravitationally bound source with orbital motion. Joint multi-planet orbit fits of all three planets in the system yield a semimajor axis of 26.0−6.1+2.2 au and inclination 89.0−0.6+0.7 deg for planet d. β Pic d has a larger orbital semimajor axis than the other known planets in the system, but is coplanar with the inner two planets, and its orbit is consistent with sculpting the inner edge of the debris disk. β Pic d has a contrast of ΔL′=12.11±0.15 mag, with colors and luminosity that closely match those of 51 Eri b, another exoplanet in the β Pic moving group. Its VLT/ERIS and JWST/NIRCam colors are distinct from those of free-floating planetary-mass objects of a similar age and temperature. Its red F410M − F444W color indicates strong CO2 absorption in its atmosphere and suggests significant enhancement in metals compared to free-floating objects. From the ATMO hot-start evolutionary models, we estimate an effective temperature of 600−60+45 K and mass of 2.4 ± 0.6 MJup, which also closely matches similar estimates for 51 Eri b. β Pic d is among the lowest-mass exoplanets imaged from the ground. This discovery highlights the deep sensitivity achievable with ground-based imaging in the mid-infrared and the discovery potential of future high-contrast observations with the Extremely Large Telescope.

Abstract:

Dynamical modelling can be used to constrain the masses of central black holes, but it is challenging to model massive galaxies because of their complex kinematics. We report six new measurements of supermassive black hole masses of massive early-type galaxies from stellar kinematics, which were extracted from adaptive-optics-assisted SINFONI and MUSE observations. We combined the stellar kinematics with HST photometry to build triaxial Schwarzschild orbit-superposition models. Our Schwarzschild models can recover the complex triaxial features of the galaxies and constrain the black hole masses of all six galaxies. We found that strong triaxial kinematic features can bias the mass measurements and corrected for this effect. The derived black hole masses are $(1.14^ DYNAMITE +0.41 _ -0.63 ) _ 10^9$ M_⊙ for NGC 3706, $(1.19^ +1.34 -0.80 ) _ 10^9$ M_⊙ for NGC 3923, $(1.14^ +1.08 -0.95 ) _ 10^9$ M_⊙ for NGC 4261, $(4.68^ +2.99 -4.26 ) _ 10^8$ M_⊙ for NGC 4636, $(3.51^ +3.37 -2.57 ) _ 10^9$ M_⊙ for IC 4296, and $(2.43^ +1.53 -1.65 ) 10^9$ M_⊙ for IC 4329 at a confidence level of 3σ. We compared our measurements with published results from axisymmetric Schwarzschild modelling and with our JAM Jeans Anisotropic models and obtained mostly consistent black hole masses. Most of our black hole mass estimates can be well constrained using MUSE observations alone. All of our mass measurements agree with local black hole scaling relations.

Abstract:

Isotopic ratios trace the formation and evolution of planets and link their atmospheres to the chemistry of their natal protoplanetary discs. We measure 12 C/ 13 C = 58 −15 +18 in the atmosphere of the young super-Jupiter β Pic b from 11 nights of CRIRES+ K-band spectroscopy (ℜ ≈ 100 000) at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We detect both 12 CO and 13 CO and constrain 12 C/ 13 C with a Bayesian retrieval jointly fitted with near-infrared photometry. The inferred 12 C/ 13 C is consistent with the present-day interstellar medium (ISM), is below the solar value, and is comparable to measurements in other young super-Jupiters. We also retrieve T eff = 1629 −28 +30 K, near-solar to mildly super-solar metallicity ([M/H] = 0.20 −012 +0.16 ), a solar-like carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O = 0.52 ± 0.03), and tentative evidence for thick clouds. We analyse each night independently and combine the results of the six epochs with the highest signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), propagating night-to-night scatter into the final uncertainties. This provides an isotopic benchmark for a directly-imaged planet interior to the CO snow line.

Abstract:

Abstract We present the first spatially resolved kinematic evidence for dust in the outflows of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). We utilise observations from JWST with NIRSpec IFU and MIRI MRS data of 10 local Seyferts and use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) tomography to extract the kinematics of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) features. PAHs comprise the smallest carbonaceous dust molecules in the Interstellar Medium (ISM), and produce emission features in the infrared providing the potential to measure kinematics. This is however challenging due to their broad shapes and variations in their intrinsic profile, prompting the need for techniques such as PCA tomography. We find that the velocity of the PAHs is similar to the molecular gas as traced by the rotational transitions of H2, where for NGC 5728 and NGC 7582, both disk and outflow are present. We detect the outflow in the kinematics of large and neutral PAHs, namely the 11.3 μm and 17 μm PAH features, where after subtracting the disk, the velocity field matches that of high-ionisation potential lines such as [NeVI] (7.65 μm, IP = 158 eV). Finally, we fail to detect kinematics of the 6.2 μm PAH due to an altered intrinsic profile while the the 3.3 μm PAH kinematics purely trace the circumnuclear disk. This suggests the PAHs in the outflow are more neutral and larger than in star-forming regions, consistent with PAH band ratios in previous studies of AGN.