TRANSIT TIMING OBSERVATIONS FROM KEPLER. IV. CONFIRMATION OF FOUR MULTIPLE-PLANET SYSTEMS BY SIMPLE PHYSICAL MODELS
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
- Astronomy Department, University of Florida, 211 Bryant Space Sciences Center, Gainesville, FL 32111 (United States)
- Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, P.O. Box 500, MS 127, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States)
- SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA 94043 (United States)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192 (United States)
- NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, 94035 (United States)
- Department of Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen (Denmark)
- NASA Exoplanet Science Institute/Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91126 (United States)
- McDonald Observatory, The University of Texas, Austin TX 78730 (United States)
- Bay Area Environmental Research Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States)
- Astronomy Department, Yale University, New Haven, CT (United States)
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.
- OSTI ID:
- 22034515
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 750, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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