Mass, Gas, and Gauss around a T Tauri Star with SPIRou

At the time of this project, IRAS04125+2092b was the youngest known transiting planet. It orbits a 3 Myr-old, low-mass member of the Taurus Molecular Cloud that also hosts disk with a large central cavity. The planet is nearly the size of Jupiter and could either be a bona fide Jovian planet or low-mass planet with a highly inflated envelope of hydrogen and helium, i.e. an ancestor to the population of sub-Neptunes seen around middle-aged stars. Mu colleague Jean-François and I, with the help of members of the SPIRou team, used the SPIRou infrared spectropolarimeter on the CFHT telescope on Maunakea to constrain the mass of the object and study the star’s magnetic field. Serendipitously, we discovered that a wind from a highly-inclined, gas disk that could be interacting with the planet.

Citation: Donati, J.-F., Gaidos, E. et al. (2025). Astronomy & Astrophysics 698, L14.
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