Two Jovian Planets around the Giant Star HD 202696: A Growing Population of Packed Massive Planetary Pairs around Massive Stars?

We present evidence for a new two-planet system around the giant star HD 202696 (=HIP 105056, BD +26 4118). The discovery is based on public HIRES radial velocity (RV) measurements taken at Keck Observatory between 2007 July and 2014 September. We estimate a stellar mass of 1.91 _-0.14 ^+0.09 M for HD 202696, which is located close to the base of the red giant branch. A two-planet self-consistent dynamical modeling MCMC scheme of the RV data followed by a long-term stability test suggests planetary orbital periods of P _b 517.8 _-3.9 ^+8.9 and P _c = 946.6 _20.9 ^20.7 days, eccentricities of e _b = _-0011 0.011 ^+0.078 and e _c =0.028 _-0.012 ^+0.065 , and minimum dynamical masses of m _b =2.00 _-0.10 ^0.22 and m _c =1.86 _-0.23 ^+0.18 M _Jup , respectively. Our stable MCMC samples are consistent with orbital configurations predominantly in a mean period ratio of 11:6 and its close-by high-order mean-motion commensurabilities with low eccentricities. For the majority of the stable configurations, we find an aligned or anti-aligned apsidal libration (i.e., Δ ω librating around 0° or 180°), suggesting that the HD 202696 system is likely dominated by secular perturbations near the high-order 11:6 mean-motion resonance. The HD 202696 system is yet another Jovian-mass pair around an intermediate-mass star with a period ratio below the 2:1 mean-motion resonance. Therefore, the HD 202696 system is an important discovery that may shed light on the primordial disk-planet properties needed for giant planets to break the strong 2:1 mean-motion resonance and settle in more compact orbits.