Are These Planets or Brown Dwarfs? Broadly Solar Compositions from High-resolution Atmospheric Retrievals of ∼10–30 M Jup Companions

Abstract

Using Keck Planet Imager and Characterizer high-resolution ( R ∼ 35,000) spectroscopy from 2.29 to 2.49 μ m, we present uniform atmospheric retrievals for eight young substellar companions with masses of ∼10–30 M _Jup , orbital separations spanning ∼50–360 au, and T _eff between ∼1500 and 2600 K. We find that all companions have solar C/O ratios and metallicities to within the 1 σ –2 σ level, with the measurements clustered around solar composition. Stars in the same stellar associations as our systems have near-solar abundances, so these results indicate that this population of companions is consistent with formation via direct gravitational collapse. Alternatively, core accretion outside the CO snowline would be compatible with our measurements, though the high mass ratios of most systems would require rapid core assembly and gas accretion in massive disks. On a population level, our findings can be contrasted with abundance measurements for directly imaged planets with m 3 σ significance. The cloudy models yield 2 σ −3 σ lower T _eff for these companions, though the C/O and [C/H] still agree between cloudy and clear models at the 1 σ level. Finally, we constrain ^12 CO/ ^13 CO for three companions with the highest signal-to-noise ratio data (GQ Lup b, HIP 79098b, and DH Tau b) and report $v\sin i$ and radial velocities for all companions.

Keywords

• Exoplanet atmospheres
• Brown dwarfs
• High resolution spectroscopy
• Exoplanet atmospheric composition
• Atmospheric clouds
• Exoplanet formation