(DOI: will be inserted by hand later) A Giant Planet Candidate near a Young Brown Dwarf? Direct VLT/NACO Observations using IR Wavefront Sensing

Abstract. We present deep VLT/NACO infrared imaging and spectroscopic observations of the brown dwarf 2MASSWJ 1207334393254, obtained during our on-going adaptive optics survey of southern young, nearby associations. This 25 MJup brown dwarf, located 70 pc from Earth, has been recently identified as a member of the TW Hydrae Association (age 8 Myr). Using adaptive optics infrared wavefront sensing to acquire sharp images of its circumstellar environment, we discovered a very faint and very red object at a close separation of 780 mas ( 55 AU). Photometry in the H, Ks and L0 bands and upper limit in J-band are compatible with a spectral type L5-L9.5. Near-infrared spectroscopy is consistent with this spec-tral type estimate. Dierent evolutionary models predict an object within the planetary regime with a mass of M = 5 2 MJup and an eective temperature of Te = 1250 200 K. Key words. 2MASSWJ 1207334393254 – brown dwarf – giant planet – adaptive optics imaging and spectroscopy 1