A quarter century of spectroscopic monitoring of the nearby M dwarf Gl 514: A super-Earth on an eccentric orbit moving in and out of the habitable zone

Context. Statistical analyses based on Kepler data show that most of the early-type M dwarfs host multi-planet systems consisting of Earth- to sub-Neptune-sized planets with orbital periods of up to ~250 days, and that at least one such planet is likely located within the habitable zone. M dwarfs are therefore primary targets to search for potentially habitable planets in the solar neighbourhood. Aims. We investigated the presence of planetary companions around the nearby (7.6 pc) and bright ( V = 9 mag) early-type M dwarf Gl 514, analysing 540 radial velocities collected over nearly 25 yr with the HIRES, HARPS, and CARMENES spectrographs. Methods. The data are affected by time-correlated signals at the level of 2–3 m s −1 due to stellar activity, which we filtered out, testing three different models based on Gaussian process regression. As a sanity cross-check, we repeated the analyses using HARPS radial velocities extracted with three different algorithms. We used HIRES radial velocities and Hipparcos-Gaia astrometry to put constraints on the presence of long-period companions, and we analysed TESS photometric data. Results. We find strong evidence that Gl 514 hosts a super-Earth on a likely eccentric orbit, residing in the conservative habitable zone for nearly 34% of its orbital period. The planet Gl 514b has minimum mass m b sin i b = 5.2 ± 0.9 M ⊕ , orbital period P b = 140.43 ± 0.41 days, and eccentricity e b = 0.45 −0.14 +0.15 . No evidence for transits is found in the TESS light curve. There is no evidence for a longer period companion in the radial velocities and, based on astrometry, we can rule out a ~0.2 M Jup planet at a distance of ~3–10 astronomical units, and massive giant planets and brown dwarfs out to several tens of astronomical units. We discuss the possible presence of a second low-mass companion at a shorter distance from the host than Gl 514 b. Conclusions. Gl 514 b represents an interesting science case for studying the habitability of planets on eccentric orbits. We advocate for additional spectroscopic follow-up to get more accurate and precise planetary parameters. Further follow-up is also needed to investigate the presence of additional planetary signals of less than 1 m s −1 .