We have detected a 12 MJup planet orbiting in or near the habitable zone of a main-sequence A star via the pulsational phase shifts induced by orbital motion. The planet has an orbital period of 840±20 d and an eccentricity of 0.15. All known planets orbiting main-sequence A stars have been found via the transit method or by direct imaging. The absence of astrometric or radial-velocity detections of planets around these hosts makes ours the first discovery using the orbital motion. It is also the first A star known to host a planet within 1σ of the habitable zone. We find evidence for planets in a large fraction of the parameter space where we are able to detect them. This supports the idea that A stars harbor high-mass planets in wide orbits.
@article{arxiv.1608.02945,
title = {A planet in an 840-d orbit around a Kepler main-sequence A star found from phase modulation of its pulsations},
author = {Simon J. Murphy and Timothy R. Bedding and Hiromoto Shibahashi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.02945},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in ApJL. Colour figures are suitable for grey-scale printing. v2 corrects an eps bounding-box issue