J. C. BeamínD. MinnitiJ. B. PullenV. D. IvanovE. BendekA. BayoM. GromadzkiKurtev, RadostinRadostinKurtevP. W. LucasR. P. Butler2025-12-072025-12-072017-08-1710.1093/mnras/stx21442-s2.0-85042612282https://cris-uv-2.scimago.es/handle/123456789/7697WOS:000415652500014The VVV survey has observed the southern disk of the Milky Way in the near\ninfrared, covering 240 deg$^{2}$ in the $ZYJHK_S$ filters. We search the VVV\nSurvey images in a $\\sim$19 deg$^{2}$ field around $\\alpha$ Centauri, the\nnearest stellar system to the Sun, to look for possible overlooked companions\nthat the baseline in time of VVV would be able to uncover. The photometric\ndepth of our search reaches $Y\\sim$19.3 mag, $J\\sim$19 mag, and $K_S\\sim$17\nmag. This search has yielded no new companions in $\\alpha$ Centauri system,\nsetting an upper mass limit for any unseen companion well into the brown\ndwarf/planetary mass regime. The apparent magnitude limits were turned into\neffective temperature limits, and the presence of companion objects with\neffective temperatures warmer than 325K can be ruled out using different\nstate-of-the-art atmospheric models.\n These limits were transformed into mass limits using evolutionary models,\ncompanions with masses above 11 M$_{Jup}$ were discarded, extending the\nconstraints recently provided in the literature up to projected distances of\nd<7 000 AU from $\\alpha$ Cen AB and $\\sim$1200 AU from Proxima. In the next few\nyears, the VVV extended survey (VVVX) will allow to extend the search and place\nsimilar limits on brown dwarfs/planetary companions to $\\alpha$ Cen AB for\nseparations up to 20 000AU.\nenacceso abiertoAstronomy And AstrophysicsSpace And Planetary Sciencearticle