| Summary: | We present the discovery and characterization of a transiting sub-Neptune that orbits the nearby (28 pc) and bright (V = 8.37) K0V star
HD 207897 (TOI-1611) with a 16.20-day period. This discovery is based on photometric measurements from the Transiting Exoplanet
Survey Satellite mission and radial velocity (RV) observations from the SOPHIE, Automated Planet Finder, and HIRES high-precision
spectrographs. We used EXOFASTv2 to model the parameters of the planet and its host star simultaneously, combining photometric
and RV data to determine the planetary system parameters. We show that the planet has a radius of 2.50 ± 0.08 RE and a mass of either
14.4 ± 1.6 ME or 15.9 ± 1.6 ME with nearly equal probability. The two solutions correspond to two possibilities for the stellar activity
period. The density accordingly is either 5.1 ± 0.7 g cm−3 or 5.5
+0.8
−0.7
g cm−3
, making it one of the relatively rare dense sub-Neptunes.
The existence of this dense planet at only 0.12 AU from its host star is unusual in the currently observed sub-Neptune (2 < RE < 4)
population. The most likely scenario is that this planet has migrated to its current position.
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