ON THE RELATIVE SIZES OF PLANETS WITHIN KEPLER MULTIPLE-CANDIDATE SYSTEMS

Journal Article · Sun Jan 20 00:00:00 EST 2013 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/763/1/41· OSTI ID:22167196

Ciardi, David R. ^[1]; Fabrycky, Daniel C. ^[2]; Ford, Eric B.; Ragozzine, Darin ^[3]; Gautier, III, T. N. ^[4]; Howell, Steve B.; Lissauer, Jack J.

---

1. NASA Exoplanet Science Institute/Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
2. UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
3. Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL (United States)
4. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA (United States)

We present a study of the relative sizes of planets within the multiple-candidate systems discovered with the Kepler mission. We have compared the size of each planet to the size of every other planet within a given planetary system after correcting the sample for detection and geometric biases. We find that for planet pairs for which one or both objects are approximately Neptune-sized or larger, the larger planet is most often the planet with the longer period. No such size-location correlation is seen for pairs of planets when both planets are smaller than Neptune. Specifically, if at least one planet in a planet pair has a radius of {approx}> 3 R {sub Circled-Plus }, 68% {+-} 6% of the planet pairs have the inner planet smaller than the outer planet, while no preferred sequential ordering of the planets is observed if both planets in a pair are smaller than {approx}< 3 R {sub Circled-Plus }.

• OSTI ID: 22167196
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 763, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
APPROXIMATIONS
ASTRONOMY
ASTROPHYSICS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CORRELATIONS
DETECTION
PLANETS
STARS