A new Neptune-mass planet orbiting HD 219828

Two years ago a new benchmark for the planetary survey was set with the discoveries of three extrasolar planets with masses below 20 M_⊕. In particular, the serendipitous discovery of the 14 M_⊕ planet around μ Ara found with HARPS with a semi-amplitude of only 4 m s^-1 put in evidence the tremendous potential of HARPS for the search of this class of very low-mass planets. Aiming to discovering new worlds similar to μ Ara b, we carried out an intensive campaign with HARPS to observe a selected sample of northern stars covering a range of metallicity from about solar to twice solar. Two stars in our program were found to present radial velocity variations compatible with the presence of a planet-mass companion. The first of these, HD 219828, was found to be orbited by a planet with a minimum mass of 19.8 M_⊕ and an orbital period of 3.83 days. It is the 11th Neptune-mass planet found so far orbiting a solar-type star. The radial velocity data clearly show the presence of an additional body to the system, likely of planetary mass. The second planet orbits HD 102195, has a mass of 0.45 M_Jup and an orbital period of 4.11 days. This planet has been already announced by Ge et al. (2006, ApJ, 648, 683). Our data confirm and improve the orbital solution found by these authors. We also show that the high residuals of the orbital solution are caused by stellar activity, and use the bisectors of the HARPS cross-correlation function to correct the noise introduced by stellar activity. An improved orbital solution is obtained after this correction. This kind of analysis may be used in the future to correct the radial-velocities for stellar activity induced noise.

Based on observations collected at the La Silla Parana Observatory, ESO (Chile) with the HARPS spectrograph at the 3.6 m telescope (Observing runs 075.C-0332, 076.C-0155, and 77.C-0101).