FIVE KEPLER TARGET STARS THAT SHOW MULTIPLE TRANSITING EXOPLANET CANDIDATES
- Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy and Physics, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192 (United States)
- NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- McDonald Observatory, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712-2059 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, 211 Bryant Space Science Center, Gainesville, FL 32611-2055 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
- National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, AZ 85719 (United States)
- Astronomy Department, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 9472 (United States)
We present and discuss five candidate exoplanetary systems identified with the Kepler spacecraft. These five systems show transits from multiple exoplanet candidates. Should these objects prove to be planetary in nature, then these five systems open new opportunities for the field of exoplanets and provide new insights into the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems. We discuss the methods used to identify multiple transiting objects from the Kepler photometry as well as the false-positive rejection methods that have been applied to these data. One system shows transits from three distinct objects while the remaining four systems show transits from two objects. Three systems have planet candidates that are near mean motion commensurabilities-two near 2:1 and one just outside 5:2. We discuss the implications that multi-transiting systems have on the distribution of orbital inclinations in planetary systems, and hence their dynamical histories, as well as their likely masses and chemical compositions. A Monte Carlo study indicates that, with additional data, most of these systems should exhibit detectable transit timing variations (TTVs) due to gravitational interactions, though none are apparent in these data. We also discuss new challenges that arise in TTV analyses due to the presence of more than two planets in a system.
- OSTI ID:
- 21474377
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 725, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/725/1/1226; ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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