Context. We present precise radial-velocity measurements of five solar-type stars observed with the HARPS Echelle spectrograph mounted on the 3.6-m telescope in La Silla (ESO, Chile). With a time span of more than 10 yr and a fairly dense sampling, the survey is sensitive to low mass planets down to super-Earths on orbital periods up to 100 days.
Aims. Our goal was to search for planetary companions around the stars HD 39194, HD 93385, HD 96700, HD 154088, and HD 189567 and use Bayesian model comparison to make an informed choice on the number of planets present in the systems based on the radial velocity observations. These findings will contribute to the pool of known exoplanets and better constrain their orbital parameters.
Methods. A first analysis was performed using the Data & Analysis Center for Exoplanets online tools to assess the activity level of the star and the potential planetary content of each system. We then used Bayesian model comparison on all targets to get a robust estimate on the number of planets per star. We did this using the nested sampling algorithm POLYCHORD. For some targets, we also compared different noise models to disentangle planetary signatures from stellar activity. Lastly, we ran an efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for each target to get reliable estimates for the planets’ orbital parameters.
Results. We identify 12 planets within several multiplanet systems. These planets are all in the super-Earth and sub-Neptune mass regime with minimum masses ranging between 4 and 13 M⊕ and orbital periods between 5 and 103 days. Three of these planets are new, namely HD 93385 b, HD 96700 c, and HD 189567 c.
Detecting planetary signals with Bayesian methods