Xoomies: Fetching companions to accelerating stars in Sco Cen with MagAO-X

Advisor: Jared Males, University of Arizona

Surveys of wide planets and brown dwarf companions accessible by direct imagin have returned extremely low survey yeilds for these objects. Uniformed searches of young star clusters are no longer an optimal use of observing time, and "smart" searches targeting the objects most likely to have companions are necessary going forward. Fortunately, we are in the era of the exquisite astrometry of Gaia. By combining Gaia astrometry with Hipparcos measurements from 1991, we have position and velocity measurements for stars spanning a 25 year baseline, which we can use to look for long period acceleration caused by unseen wide plantary mass companions.

Several groups have produced catalogs and acceleration measurements from which exoplanet direct imagers are developing target lists trying to catch the unseen accelerators. (Ex: Currie et al. 2021, Bowler et al. 2021, Bonavita et al. 2022)

MagAO-X is getting into the game with Xoomies: Fetching companions to accelerating stars in Sco Cen with MagAO-X. We are targeting accelerating stars in Scorpious Centaurus star forming region. Stand by for Xoomies results coming soon!