A massive hot Jupiter orbiting a metal-rich early-M star discovered in the TESS full frame images

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of TOI-4201b, the most massive hot Jupiter around an M dwarf, challenging existing formation theories and revealing a strong metallicity correlation for such planets.

Contribution

It presents the discovery and characterization of TOI-4201b, the most massive hot Jupiter around an M dwarf, and analyzes metallicity trends across different planetary groups.

Findings

TOI-4201b is the most massive hot Jupiter around an M dwarf known so far.

Host star has super-solar metallicity, but the planet appears metal-poor, challenging classical theories.

Hot Jupiters around M dwarfs show a strong correlation with stellar metallicity.

Abstract

Observations and statistical studies have shown that giant planets are rare around M dwarfs compared with Sun-like stars. The formation mechanism of these extreme systems remains under debate for decades. With the help of the TESS mission and ground based follow-up observations, we report the discovery of TOI-4201b, the most massive and densest hot Jupiter around an M dwarf known so far with a radius of $1.22\pm 0.04\ R_J$ and a mass of $2.48\pm0.09\ M_J$, about 5 times heavier than most other giant planets around M dwarfs. It also has the highest planet-to-star mass ratio ($q\sim 4\times 10^{-3}$) among such systems. The host star is an early-M dwarf with a mass of $0.61\pm0.02\ M_{\odot}$ and a radius of $0.63\pm0.02\ R_{\odot}$. It has significant super-solar iron abundance ([Fe/H]=$0.52\pm 0.08$ dex). However, interior structure modeling suggests that its planet TOI-4201b is metal-poor, which challenges the classical core-accretion correlation of stellar-planet metallicity, unless the planet is inflated by additional energy sources. Building on the detection of this planet, we compare the stellar metallicity distribution of four planetary groups: hot/warm Jupiters around G/M dwarfs. We find that hot/warm Jupiters show a similar metallicity dependence around G-type stars. For M dwarf host stars, the occurrence of hot Jupiters shows a much stronger correlation with iron abundance, while warm Jupiters display a weaker preference, indicating possible different formation histories.