High-contrast Imaging around a 2 Myr-old CI Tau with a Close-in Gas Giant

Abstract

Giant planets around young stars serve as a clue to unveiling their formation history and orbital evolution. CI Tau is a 2 Myr-old classical T Tauri star hosting an eccentric hot Jupiter, CI Tau b. The standard formation scenario of a hot Jupiter predicts that planets formed further out and migrated inward. A high eccentricity of CI Tau b may be suggestive of high-e migration due to secular gravitational perturbations by an outer companion. Also, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array 1.3 mm-continuum observations show that CI Tau has at least three annular gaps in which unseen planets may exist. We present high-contrast imaging around CI Tau taken from the Keck/NIRC2 _(L')-band filter and vortex coronagraph that allows us to search for an outer companion. We did not detect any outer companion around CI Tau from angular differential imaging (ADI) using two deep imaging data sets. The detection limits from ADI-reduced images rule out the existence of an outer companion beyond ∼30 au that can cause the Kozai–Lidov migration of CI Tau b. Our results suggest that CI Tau b may have experienced type II migration from ≲2 au in megayears. We also confirm that no planets with ≥ 2–4 M_Jup are hidden in two outer gaps.