Architecture of Kepler's multi-transiting systems. II. New investigations with twice as many candidates
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (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)
- Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, P.O. Box 500, MS 127, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, P.O. Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States)
- NASA Exoplanet Science Institute/Caltech, 770 South Wilson Avenue, MC 100-2, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, 525 Davey Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States)
We report on the orbital architectures of Kepler systems having multiple-planet candidates identified in the analysis of data from the first six quarters of Kepler data and reported by Batalha et al. (2013). These data show 899 transiting planet candidates in 365 multiple-planet systems and provide a powerful means to study the statistical properties of planetary systems. Using a generic mass-radius relationship, we find that only two pairs of planets in these candidate systems (out of 761 pairs total) appear to be on Hill-unstable orbits, indicating ∼96% of the candidate planetary systems are correctly interpreted as true systems. We find that planet pairs show little statistical preference to be near mean-motion resonances. We identify an asymmetry in the distribution of period ratios near first-order resonances (e.g., 2:1, 3:2), with an excess of planet pairs lying wide of resonance and relatively few lying narrow of resonance. Finally, based upon the transit duration ratios of adjacent planets in each system, we find that the interior planet tends to have a smaller transit impact parameter than the exterior planet does. This finding suggests that the mode of the mutual inclinations of planetary orbital planes is in the range 1.°0-2.°2, for the packed systems of small planets probed by these observations.
- OSTI ID:
- 22365463
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 790, 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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