TOI-4201: An Early M Dwarf Hosting a Massive Transiting Jupiter Stretching Theories of Core Accretion

Megan Delamer, Shubham Kanodia, Caleb I. Cañas, Simon Müller, Ravit Helled, Andrea S.J. Lin, Jessica E. Libby-Roberts, Arvind F. Gupta, Suvrath Mahadevan, Johanna Teske, R. Paul Butler, Samuel W. Yee, Jeffrey D. Crane, Stephen Shectman, David Osip, Yuri Beletsky, Andrew Monson, Leslie Hebb, Luke C. Powers, John P. WisniewskiJaime A. Alvarado-Montes, Chad F. Bender, Jiayin Dong, Te Han, Joe P. Ninan, Paul Robertson, Arpita Roy, Christian Schwab, Guđmundur Stefánsson, Jason T. Wright

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Abstract

We confirm TOI-4201 b as a transiting Jovian-mass planet orbiting an early M dwarf discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Using ground-based photometry and precise radial velocities from NEID and the Planet Finder Spectrograph, we measure a planet mass of 2.59 − 0.06 + 0.07 M J, making this one of the most massive planets transiting an M dwarf. The planet is ∼0.4% of the mass of its 0.63 M host and may have a heavy-element mass comparable to the total dust mass contained in a typical class II disk. TOI-4201 b stretches our understanding of core accretion during the protoplanetary phase and the disk mass budget, necessitating giant planet formation to take place either much earlier in the disk lifetime or perhaps through alternative mechanisms like gravitational instability.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numberL22
JournalAstrophysical Journal Letters
Volume962
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 1 2024

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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