RADIAL VELOCITY OBSERVATIONS AND LIGHT CURVE NOISE MODELING CONFIRM THAT KEPLER-91b IS A GIANT PLANET ORBITING A GIANT STAR
- NASA Ames Research Center, M/S 244-30, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States)
- McDonald Observatory, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 (United States)
- New York University, Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, New York, NY 10003 (United States)
Kepler-91b is a rare example of a transiting hot Jupiter around a red giant star, providing the possibility to study the formation and composition of hot Jupiters under different conditions compared to main-sequence stars. However, the planetary nature of Kepler-91b, which was confirmed using phase-curve variations by Lillo-Box et al., was recently called into question based on a re-analysis of Kepler data. We have obtained ground-based radial velocity observations from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope and unambiguously confirm the planetary nature of Kepler-91b by simultaneously modeling the Kepler and radial velocity data. The star exhibits temporally correlated noise due to stellar granulation which we model as a Gaussian Process. We hypothesize that it is this noise component that led previous studies to suspect Kepler-91b to be a false positive. Our work confirms the conclusions presented by Lillo-Box et al. that Kepler-91b is a 0.73 ± 0.13 M {sub Jup} planet orbiting a red giant star.
- OSTI ID:
- 22364233
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 800, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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