Search for planetary companions with Spitzer/IRAC

With its high sensitivity and stable point-spread function, Spitzer/Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) is uniquely capable of detecting cool, Jupiter-like planetary companions whose peak emission is predicted to occur near 4.5um. We report on deep IRAC imaging of these two stars, taken at 3.6 and 4.5um using subarray mode and in all four channels in wider-field full array mode.

Observations acquired at two different telescope roll angles allowed faint surrounding objects to be separated from the stellar diffraction pattern. No companion candidates were detected at the reported position of Fomalhaut b with 3{sigma} model-dependent mass upper limits of 3M_J_ (for an age of 200Myr). Around {epsilon} Eridani, we instead set a limit of 4 and <~1M_J_ (1Gyr model age) at the inner and outer edge of the submillimeter debris ring, respectively.