TY - JOUR
T1 - A lack of planets in 47 Tucanae from a Hubble Space Telescope search
AU - Gilliland, Ronald L.
AU - Brown, T. M.
AU - Guhathakurta, P.
AU - Sarajedini, A.
AU - Milone, E. F.
AU - Albrow, M. D.
AU - Baliber, N. R.
AU - Bruntt, H.
AU - Burrows, Adam S.
AU - Charbonneau, D.
AU - Choi, P.
AU - Cochran, W. D.
AU - Edmonds, P. D.
AU - Frandsen, S.
AU - Howell, J. H.
AU - Lin, D. N.C.
AU - Marcy, G. W.
AU - Mayor, M.
AU - Naef, D.
AU - Sigurdsson, S.
AU - Stagg, C. R.
AU - Vandenberg, D. A.
AU - Vogt, S. S.
AU - Williams, M. D.
N1 - Funding Information:
1 Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained at STScI, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. 2 Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218; [email protected]. 3High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307; NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. 4 UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064. 5Astronomy Department, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459. 6 Physics and Astronomy Department, University of Calgary, Calgary, T2N 1N4, Canada. 7Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712. 8 Institute for Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, DK-8000, Aarhus C, Denmark. 9Department of Astronomy, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721. 10Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. 11 Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, 601 Campbell Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720. 12Observatoire de Genève, CH-1290 Sauverny, Switzerland. 13 Department of Astronomy, Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802. 14Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, Canada.
Funding Information:
We thank Merle Reinhart and Patricia Royle at STScI for assistance in scheduling these unique observations. This work was supported in part by STScI grant GO-8267.01-97A to the Space Telescope Science Institute and by several STScI grants from the same proposal to co-I institutions.
PY - 2000/12/10
Y1 - 2000/12/10
N2 - We report results from a large Hubble Space Telescope project to observe a significant (∼34,000) ensemble of main-sequence stars in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae with a goal of defining the frequency of inner orbit, gas giant planets. Simulations based on the characteristics of the 8.3 days of time series data in the F555W and F814W Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) filters show that ∼17 planets should be detected by photometric transit signals if the frequency of hot Jupiters found in the solar neighborhood is assumed to hold for 47 Tuc. The experiment provided high-quality data sufficient to detect planets. A full analysis of these WFPC2 data reveals ∼75 variables, but no light curves resulted for which a convincing interpretation as a planet could be made. The planet frequency in 47 Tuc is at least an order of magnitude below that for the solar neighborhood. The cause of the absence of close-in planets in 47 Tuc is not yet known; presumably the low metallicity and/or crowding of 47 Tue interfered with planet formation, with orbital evolution to close-in positions, or with planet survival.
AB - We report results from a large Hubble Space Telescope project to observe a significant (∼34,000) ensemble of main-sequence stars in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae with a goal of defining the frequency of inner orbit, gas giant planets. Simulations based on the characteristics of the 8.3 days of time series data in the F555W and F814W Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) filters show that ∼17 planets should be detected by photometric transit signals if the frequency of hot Jupiters found in the solar neighborhood is assumed to hold for 47 Tuc. The experiment provided high-quality data sufficient to detect planets. A full analysis of these WFPC2 data reveals ∼75 variables, but no light curves resulted for which a convincing interpretation as a planet could be made. The planet frequency in 47 Tuc is at least an order of magnitude below that for the solar neighborhood. The cause of the absence of close-in planets in 47 Tuc is not yet known; presumably the low metallicity and/or crowding of 47 Tue interfered with planet formation, with orbital evolution to close-in positions, or with planet survival.
KW - Binaries: eclipsing
KW - Globular clusters: individual (NGC 104, 47 Tucanae)
KW - Planetary systems
KW - Techniques: photometric
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U2 - 10.1086/317334
DO - 10.1086/317334
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:18844471440
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 545
SP - L47-L51
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 1 PART 2
ER -