The GAPS programme at TNG: XLIII. A massive brown dwarf orbiting the active M dwarf TOI-5375

Context. Massive substellar companions orbiting active low-mass stars are rare. They, however, offer an excellent opportunity to study the main mechanisms involved in the formation and evolution of substellar objects. Aims: We aim to unravel the physical nature of the transit signal observed by the TESS space mission on the active M dwarf TOI-5375. Methods: We analysed the available TESS photometric data as well as high-resolution (R ~ 115 000) HARPS-N spectra. We combined these data to characterise the star TOI-5375 and to disentangle signals related to stellar activity from the companion transit signal in the light-curve data. We ran a Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis to derive the orbital solution and applied state-of-the-art Gaussian process regression to deal with the stellar activity signal. Results: We reveal the presence of a companion in the boundary between the brown dwarfs and the very-low-mass stars orbiting around the star TOI-5375. The best-fit model corresponds to a companion with an orbital period of 1.721564 ± 10−6 d, a mass of 77 ± 8 MJ, and a radius of 0.99 ± 0.16 RJ. Conclusions: We derive a rotation period for the host star of 1.9692 ± 0.0004 d, and we conclude that the star is very close to synchronising its rotation with the orbital period of the companion.