Hint of an exocomet transit in the CHEOPS lightcurve of HD 172555
Authors: F. Kiefer, V. Van Grootel, A. Lecavelier des Etangs, Gy. M. Szabó, A. Brandeker, C. Broeg, A. Collier Cameron, A. Deline, G. Olofsson, T. G. Wilson, S. G. Sousa, D. Gandolfi, G. Hébrard, Y. Alibert, R. Alonso, G. Anglada, T. Bárczy, D. Barrado, S. C. C. Barros, W. Baumjohann, M. Beck, T. Beck, W. Benz, N. Billot, X. Bonfils, J. Cabrera, S. Charnoz, Sz. Csizmadia, M. B. Davies, M. Deleuil, L. Delrez, O. D. S. Demangeon, B. -O. Demory, D. Ehrenreich, A. Erikson, A. Fortier, L. Fossati, M. Fridlund, M. Gillon, M. Güdel, K. Heng, S. Hoyer, K. G. Isaak, L. L. Kiss, J. Laskar, M. Lendl, C. Lovis, D. Magrin, P. F. L. Maxted, M. Munari, V. Nascimbeni, R. Ottensamer, I. Pagano, E. Pallé, G. Peter, D. Piazza, G. Piotto, D. Pollacco, D. Queloz, R. Ragazzoni, N. Rando, F. Ratti, H. Rauer, C. Reimers, I. Ribas, N. C. Santos, G. Scandariato, D. Ségransan, A. E. Simon, A. M. S. Smith, M. Steller, N. Thomas, S. Udry, I. Walter, N. A. Walton
Abstract: HD$\,$172555 is a young ($\sim$20$\,$Myr) A7V star surrounded by a 10$\,$au wide debris disk suspected to be replenished partly by collisions between large planetesimals. Small evaporating transiting bodies, exocomets, have also been detected in this system by spectroscopy. After $\beta\,$Pictoris, this is another example of a system possibly witnessing a phase of heavy bombardment of planetesimals. In such system, small bodies trace dynamical evolution processes. We aim at constraining their dust content by using transit photometry. We performed a 2-day-long photometric monitoring of HD$\,$172555 with the CHEOPS space telescope in order to detect shallow transits of exocomets with a typical expected duration of a few hours. The large oscillations in the lightcurve indicate that HD$\,$172555 is a $\delta\,$Scuti pulsating star. Once removing those dominating oscillations, we find a hint for a transient absorption. If fitted with an exocomet transit model, it corresponds to an evaporating body passing near the star at a distance of $6.8\pm1.4\,$R$_\star$ (or $0.05\pm 0.01\,$au) with a radius of 2.5 km. These properties are comparable to those of the exocomets already found in this system using spectroscopy, as well as those found in the $\beta\,$Pic system. The nuclei of solar system's Jupiter family comets, with radii of 2-6$\,$km, are also comparable in size. This is the first evidence for an exocomet photometric transit detection in the young system of HD$\,$172555.
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