THE NEPTUNE-SIZED CIRCUMBINARY PLANET KEPLER-38b

By J. Orosz, W. Welsh, J. Carter, E. Brugamyer, Lars A. Buchhave, W. Cochran, M. Endl, Eric B. Ford, P. MacQueen, D. Short and 21 more. 2012

172 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We discuss the discovery and characterization of the circumbinary planet Kepler-38b. The stellar binary is single-lined, with a period of 18.8 days, and consists of a moderately evolved main-sequence star (MA = 0.949  ±  0.059 M☉ and RA = 1.757  ±  0.034 R☉) paired with a low-mass star (MB = 0.249  ±  0.010 M☉ and RB = 0.2724  ±  0.0053 R☉) in a mildly eccentric (e = 0.103) orbit. A total of eight transits due to a circumbinary planet crossing the primary star were identified in the Kepler light curve (using Kepler Quarters 1–11), from which a planetary period of 105.595  ±  0.053 days can be established. A photometric dynamical model fit to the radial velocity curve and Kepler light curve yields a planetary radius of 4.35  ±  0.11 R⊕, or equivalently 1.12  ±  0.03 RNep. Since the planet is not sufficiently massive to observably alter the orbit of the binary from Keplerian motion, we can only place an upper limit on the mass of the planet of 122 M⊕ (7.11 MNep or equivalently 0.384 MJup) at 95% confidence. This upper limit should decrease as more Kepler data become available.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/10e9df5bbafca10c06bc7ac3a702b7904c2c672c

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

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3. E. Gaidos
4. J. Winn
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Citations in the corpus

• KEPLER-413B: A SLIGHTLY MISALIGNED, NEPTUNE-SIZE TRANSITING CIRCUMBINARY PLANET (2014, methodology): “We measure the stellar eclipse times using the methodology of Orosz et al. (2012a).”
• The Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Effect and Its Applications (2016, background): “Recently, the Kepler mission detected several circumbinary planetary systems (Doyle et al. 2011; Orosz et al. 2012b,a; Welsh et al. 2012, 2015; Kostov et al. 2013, 2014; Schwamb et al. 2013).”
• A comprehensive study of the Kepler triples via eclipse timing (2015, methodology): “Ten transiting circumbinary planets have been previously reported (Doyle et al. 2011; Welsh et al. 2012; Orosz et al. 2012a,b; Schwamb et al. 2013; Kostov et al. 2013, 2014; Welsh et al. 2015).”
• REVISED STELLAR PROPERTIES OF KEPLER TARGETS FOR THE QUARTER 1–16 TRANSIT DETECTION RUN (2013, background): “…al. 2010; Lissauer et al. 2011; Carter et al. 2012), the detection of small planets in or near the habitable zone (Borucki et al. 2012, 2013; Barclay et al. 2013b), and the discovery of single and multi-planet systems around binary stars (Doyle et al. 2011; Welsh et al. 2012; Orosz et al. 2012a).”
• Revised Stellar Properties of Kepler Targets for the Q1-17 (DR25) Transit Detection Run (2016, background): “…2015) as well as numerous individual discoveries such as Kepler’s first rocky exoplanet, Kepler-10b (Batalha et al. 2011), circumbinary planets (e.g. Orosz et al. 2012b; Kostov et al. 2014; Welsh et al. 2015), or the detection of planets in or near the habitable zone (e.g. Ballard et al. 2013;…”
• The Occurrence and Architecture of Exoplanetary Systems (2014, background): “Kepler-47 is the only binary with more than one known planets (Orosz et al. 2012b, Kostov et al. 2013); in all the other cases only one circumbinary planet is known in the system.”
• PLANET HUNTERS: A TRANSITING CIRCUMBINARY PLANET IN A QUADRUPLE STAR SYSTEM (2012, methodology): “Previous analyses combining transiting circumbinary planetary light curves and radial veloc- ity data (Doyle et al. 2011; Welsh et al. 2012; Orosz et al. 2012a,b) have demonstrated that it is possible to measure absolute masses and radii of the parent stars and planet from first principles.”
• HOW TO CONSTRAIN YOUR M DWARF: MEASURING EFFECTIVE TEMPERATURE, BOLOMETRIC LUMINOSITY, MASS, AND RADIUS (2015, unknown): “…& Ribas (2005), López-Morales et al. (2006), LópezMorales & Shaw (2007), Irwin et al. (2009, 2011), Morales et al. (2009a, 2009b), Carter et al. (2011), Doyle et al. (2011), Kraus et al. (2011), Orosz et al. (2012a, 2012b), Bass et al. (2012), Hełminiak et al. (2012), and Torres et al. (2014).”