Astrometric search for a planet around VB 10

TL;DR

This study used precise astrometric measurements to search for a planet around VB 10, ultimately ruling out the previously announced planet with high confidence.

Contribution

It provides the first high-precision astrometric test that conclusively refutes the existence of the proposed planet VB 10b.

Findings

No significant astrometric residuals indicating a planet were detected.

The announced 6.4 M_J planet is rejected with 99.95% confidence.

A 3.2 M_J planet is also statistically excluded.

Abstract

We observed VB 10 in August and September 2009 using the FORS2 camera of the VLT with the aim of measuring its astrometric motion and of probing the presence of the announced planet VB 10b. We used the published STEPS astrometric positions of VB 10 over a time-span of 9 years, which allowed us to compare the expected motion of VB 10 due to parallax and proper motion with the observed motion and to compute precise deviations. The achieved single-epoch precisions of our observations are about 0.1 mas and the data showed no significant residual trend, while the presence of the planet should have induced an apparent proper motion larger than 10 mas/yr. Subtraction of the predicted orbital motion from the observed data produces a large trend in position residuals of VB 10. We estimated the probability that this trend is caused by random noise. Taking all the uncertainties into account and using Monte-Carlo resampling of the data, we are able to reject the existence of VB 10b with the announced mass of 6.4 M_J with the false alarm probability of only 0.0005. A 3.2 M_J planet is also rejected with a false alarm probability of 0.023.