Constraining Accretion Signatures of Exoplanets in the TW Hya Transitional Disk

We present a near-infrared direct imaging search for accretion signatures of possible protoplanets around the young stellar object (YSO) TW Hya, a multi-ring disk exhibiting evidence of planet formation. The Paβ line (1.282 m) is an indication of accretion onto a protoplanet, and its intensity is much higher than that of blackbody radiation from the protoplanet. We focused on the Paβ line and performed Keck/OSIRIS spectroscopic observations. Although spectral differential imaging (SDI) reduction detected no accretion signatures, the results of the present study allowed us to set 5 detection limits for Paβ emission of 5.8 × 10−18 and 1.5 × 10−18 erg−1 s−1 cm−2 at 0 4 and 1 6, respectively. We considered the mass of potential planets using theoretical simulations of circumplanetary disks and hydrogen emission. The resulting masses were 1.45 0.04 MJ and at 25 and 95 au, respectively, which agree with the detection limits obtained from previous broadband imaging. The detection limits should allow for the identification of protoplanets as small as ∼1 MJ, which may assist in direct imaging searches around faint YSOs for which extreme adaptive optics instruments are unavailable.