KOI-142, THE KING OF TRANSIT VARIATIONS, IS A PAIR OF PLANETS NEAR THE 2:1 RESONANCE
- Department of Space Studies, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302 (United States)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 05844 (United States)
- Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen (Denmark)
The transit timing variations (TTVs) can be used as a diagnostic of gravitational interactions between planets in a multi-planet system. Many Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs) exhibit significant TTVs, but KOI-142.01 stands out among them with an unrivaled ≅12 hr TTV amplitude. Here we report a thorough analysis of KOI-142.01's transits. We discover periodic transit duration variations (TDVs) of KOI-142.01 that are nearly in phase with the observed TTVs. We show that KOI-142.01's TTVs and TDVs uniquely detect a non-transiting companion with a mass ≅0.63 that of Jupiter (KOI-142c). KOI-142.01's mass inferred from the transit variations is consistent with the measured transit depth, suggesting a Neptune-class planet (KOI-142b). The orbital period ratio P{sub c} /P{sub b} = 2.03 indicates that the two planets are just wide of the 2:1 resonance. The present dynamics of this system, characterized here in detail, can be used to test various formation theories that have been proposed to explain the near-resonant pairs of exoplanets.
- OSTI ID:
- 22270697
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 777, 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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