First Results from the Anglo-Australian Planet Search: A Brown Dwarf Candidate and a 51 Peg-like Planet

We report results from the Anglo-Australian Planet Search, a survey for planets around 200 solar-type stars in the southern hemisphere that is being carried out on the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope. Limiting Doppler precisions of 3 m s-1 have been demonstrated from the first 2.5 years of operation, making this the highest-precision planet search in the southern hemisphere. From these data we report results for two new substellar detections. The first is a 51 Peg-like planet around the star HD 179949 with Msini=0.84 MJUP. Photometric study reveals this is not a transiting system. The second is a brown dwarf or very low mass star companion to HD 164427 in an eccentric orbit with Msini=46 MJUP. Hipparcos data indicate this latter object is unlikely to have a mass greater than 0.18 M_solar. Based on observations obtained at the Anglo-Australian Telescope, Siding Spring, Australia, and the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated jointly by the University of California and the California Institute of Technology.