SCExAO/MEC and CHARIS Discovery of a Low Mass, 6 AU-Separation Companion to HIP 109427 using Stochastic Speckle Discrimination and High-Contrast Spectroscopy
We report the direct imaging discovery of a low-mass companion to the nearby accelerating A star, HIP 109427, with the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) instrument coupled with the MKID Exoplanet Camera (MEC) and CHARIS integral field spectrograph. CHARIS data reduced with reference star PSF subtraction yield 1.1-2.4 $μ$m spectra. MEC reveals the companion in $Y$ and $J$ band at a comparable signal-to-noise ratio using stochastic speckle discrimination, with no PSF subtraction techniques. Combined with complementary follow-up $L_{\rm p}$ photometry from Keck/NIRC2, the SCExAO data favors a spectral type, effective temperature, and luminosity of M4-M5.5, 3000-3200 $K$, and $\log_{10}(L/L_{\rm \odot}) = -2.28^{+0.04}_{-0.04}$, respectively. Relative astrometry of HIP 109427 B from SCExAO/CHARIS and Keck/NIRC2, and complementary Gaia-Hipparcos absolute astrometry of the primary favor a semimajor axis of $6.55^{+3.0}_{-0.48}$ au, an eccentricity of $0.54^{+0.28}_{-0.15}$, an inclination of $66.7^{+8.5}_{-14}$ degrees, and a dynamical mass of $0.280^{+0.18}_{-0.059}$ $M_{\odot}$. This work shows the potential for extreme AO systems to utilize speckle statistics in addition to widely-used post-processing methods to directly image faint companions to nearby stars near the telescope diffraction limit.