TRANSIT TIMING OBSERVATIONS FROM KEPLER. IV. CONFIRMATION OF FOUR MULTIPLE-PLANET SYSTEMS BY SIMPLE PHYSICAL MODELS

By D. Fabrycky, Eric B. Ford, J. Steffen, J. Rowe, J. Carter, A. Moorhead, N. Batalha, William J. Borucki, S. Bryson, Lars A. Buchhave and 24 more. 2012

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Eighty planetary systems of two or more planets are known to orbit stars other than the Sun. For most, the data can be sufficiently explained by non-interacting Keplerian orbits, so the dynamical interactions of these systems have not been observed. Here we present four sets of light curves from the Kepler spacecraft, each which of shows multiple planets transiting the same star. Departure of the timing of these transits from strict periodicity indicates that the planets are perturbing each other: the observed timing variations match the forcing frequency of the other planet. This confirms that these objects are in the same system. Next we limit their masses to the planetary regime by requiring the system remain stable for astronomical timescales. Finally, we report dynamical fits to the transit times, yielding possible values for the planets’ masses and eccentricities. As the timespan of timing data increases, dynamical fits may allow detailed constraints on the systems’ architectures, even in cases for which high-precision Doppler follow-up is impractical.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f2081316888b594f8ae1d10cfef65e7b26ba20e1

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Characterization of exoplanets from their formation - II. The planetary mass-radius relationship (2012, background): “We additionally plot Kepler-20d (Gautier et al. 2012) and Kepler-10c (Fressin et al. 2011), for which only upper mass limits are known, as it is unfortunately the case for many other interesting Kepler planets like those around Kepler-30 or Kepler-11g (Fabrycky et al. 2012, Lissauer et al. 2011a).”
THE OCCURRENCE RATE OF SMALL PLANETS AROUND SMALL STARS (2013, background): “Fabrycky et al. (2012a) also present transit parameters for a fifth planet candidate in the KOI 952 system, but we choose not to add KOI 952.05 to our sample because that planet candidate was not included in the February 2012 planet candidate list (Batalha et al. 2012) and including KOI 952.05…”
CHARACTERIZING THE COOL KOIs. IV. KEPLER-32 AS A PROTOTYPE FOR THE FORMATION OF COMPACT PLANETARY SYSTEMS THROUGHOUT THE GALAXY (2012, methodology): “We combine the results of the above analyses with those of Borucki et al. (2011a), Muirhead et al. (2012a), and Fabrycky et al. (2012a) by weighted mean to obtain the final values used in this work presented in Table 2.”
AN EFFICIENT AUTOMATED VALIDATION PROCEDURE FOR EXOPLANET TRANSIT CANDIDATES (2012, background): “…variations (TTVs) that may be used to dynamically confirm the planets in the system (Holman et al. 2010; Lissauer et al. 2011; Cochran et al. 2011; Fabrycky et al. 2012; Ford et al. 2012; Steffen et al. 2012), but the number of systems for which this is feasible is still an overwhelming minority…”
EXTRACTING PLANET MASS AND ECCENTRICITY FROM TTV DATA (2012, methodology): “— TTV data and fits for Kepler-28 (data from Steffen et al. 2012) and Kepler-32 (data from Fabrycky et al. 2012a).”
A NEARBY M STAR WITH THREE TRANSITING SUPER-EARTHS DISCOVERED BY K2 (2015, methodology): “Among the 413 such systems in Fabrycky et al. (2012), only six had ∆in + ∆out < 18.”
DENSITIES AND ECCENTRICITIES OF 139 KEPLER PLANETS FROM TRANSIT TIME VARIATIONS (2013, background): “If these transit time variations (TTVs) can be detected, they can be used to characterize planets (Agol et al. 2005; Holman & Murray 2005; Steffen et al. 2013, 2012; Fabrycky et al. 2012; Nesvornỳ et al. 2012; Lithwick et al. 2012; Xie 2013).”
ARCHITECTURE OF KEPLER'S MULTI-TRANSITING SYSTEMS. II. NEW INVESTIGATIONS WITH TWICE AS MANY CANDIDATES (2012, background): “We have not included some additional candidates given in the papers of Ford et al. (2012); Steffen et al. (2012); Fabrycky et al. (2012), as these were found by extraordinary searching beyond the standard pipeline applied to Q6 data.”
Breaking the chains: hot super-Earth systems from migration and disruption of compact resonant chains (2017, methodology): “As transit surveys provide only the radius but not mass of these planets, he used the mass–radius relationship of Fabrycky et al. (2012) to estimate the planetary masses.”
FUNDAMENTAL PROPERTIES OF KEPLER PLANET-CANDIDATE HOST STARS USING ASTEROSEISMOLOGY (2013, unknown): “…the sample of planets with determined masses through radial velocity follow-up (see, e.g., Latham et al. 2010; Cochran et al. 2011) or transit-timing variations (see, e.g., Fabrycky et al. 2012; Ford et al. 2012; Steffen et al. 2012a) for hosts for which asteroseismic constraints are available.”
HOW THERMAL EVOLUTION AND MASS-LOSS SCULPT POPULATIONS OF SUPER-EARTHS AND SUB-NEPTUNES: APPLICATION TO THE KEPLER-11 SYSTEM AND BEYOND (2012, unknown): “…(Fressin et al. 2012; Gautier et al. 2012), Kepler-18b (Cochran et al. 2011), 55 Cancri e (Winn et al. 2011; Demory et al. 2011), GJ 1214b (Charbonneau et al. 2009), Kepler-36c (Carter et al. 2012), Kepler-30b (Fabrycky et al. 2012; Sanchis-Ojeda et al. 2012), and GJ 3470b (Bonfils et al. 2012).”
Transit timing observations from Kepler - VII. Confirmation of 27 planets in 13 multiplanet systems via transit timing variations and orbital stability (2012, methodology): “…(Lissauer et al. 2011a), Kepler 18 (Cochran et al. 2011), and Kepler 36 (Carter et al. 2012)), 21 planets in 10 multiplanet systems have been confirmed by these new methods that we apply again here (Kepler systems 23 through 32, Fabrycky et al. (2012a); Ford et al. (2012a); Steffen et al. (2012a)).”
TRANSIT TIMING OBSERVATIONS FROM KEPLER. VIII. CATALOG OF TRANSIT TIMING MEASUREMENTS OF THE FIRST TWELVE QUARTERS (2013, background): “Indeed, TTVs turn out to be a crucial tool in the study of systems with known multiple transiting planets (e.g., Holman et al. 2010; Lissauer et al. 2011a; Cochran et al. 2011; Fabrycky et al. 2012; Steffen et al. 2012a; Lithwick et al. 2012).”
A STUDY OF THE SHORTEST-PERIOD PLANETS FOUND WITH KEPLER (2014, background): “Along with Kepler-10b, some of the more prominent discoveries have been the innermost planets of Kepler-42 (Muirhead et al. 2012) and Kepler-32 (Fabrycky et al. 2012; Swift et al. 2013) and the system Kepler-70, where two very 1 Department of Physics, and Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space…”
FALSE POSITIVE PROBABILITIES FOR ALL KEPLER OBJECTS OF INTEREST: 1284 NEWLY VALIDATED PLANETS AND 428 LIKELY FALSE POSITIVES (2016, background): “…of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA 7 Hubble Fellow ing variations (TTVs) in multi-planet systems (e.g., Ford et al. 2012; Steffen et al. 2012; Fabrycky et al. 2012; Steffen et al. 2013; Jontof-Hutter et al. 2015), but this still leaves the vast majority of candidates inaccessible to…”