The SOPHIE search for northern extrasolar planets XV. A warm Neptune around the M dwarf Gl 378
Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2019
Recommended citation: Hobson, M.J. et al. (2019). "The SOPHIE search for northern extrasolar planets XV. A warm Neptune around the M dwarf Gl 378" Astronomy & Astrophysics. 625, A18. https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2019/05/aa34890-18/aa34890-18.html
We present the detection of a Warm Neptune orbiting the M-dwarf Gl378, using radial velocity measurements obtained with the SOPHIE spectrograph at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence. The star was observed in the context of the SOPHIE exoplanets consortium’s subprogramme dedicated to finding planets around M-dwarfs. Gl378 is an M1 star, of solar metallicity, at a distance of 14.96 pc. The single planet detected, Gl378 b, has a minimum mass of 13.02 M\(_\oplus\) and an orbital period of 3.82 days, which place it at the lower boundary of the Hot Neptune desert. As one of only a few such planets around M-dwarfs, Gl378 b provides important clues to the evolutionary history of these close-in planets. In particular, the eccentricity of 0.1 may point to a high-eccentricity migration. The planet may also have lost part of its envelope due to irradiation.