Multiwavelength observations of the candidate disintegrating sub-Mercury KIC 12557548B , ,
- Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)
- Visidyne, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA 93105 (United States)
- Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
- Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, 225 Nieuwland Science Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556 (United States)
- Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822 (United States)
- Departments of Astronomy and of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California at Berkeley, Hearst Field Annex B-20, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411 (United States)
- SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, M/S 244-30, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States)
- Département de physique, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128 Succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, QC H3C 3J7 (Canada)
- INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, via Osservatorio 20, I-10025 Pino Torinese (Italy)
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
We present multiwavelength photometry, high angular resolution imaging, and radial velocities of the unique and confounding disintegrating low-mass planet candidate KIC 12557548b. Our high angular resolution imaging, which includes space-based Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (HST/WFC3) observations in the optical (∼0.53 μm and ∼0.77 μm), and ground-based Keck/NIRC2 observations in K' band (∼2.12 μm), allow us to rule out background and foreground candidates at angular separations greater than 0.''2 that are bright enough to be responsible for the transits we associate with KIC 12557548. Our radial velocity limit from Keck/HIRES allows us to rule out bound, low-mass stellar companions (∼0.2 M {sub ☉}) to KIC 12557548 on orbits less than 10 yr, as well as placing an upper limit on the mass of the candidate planet of 1.2 Jupiter masses; therefore, the combination of our radial velocities, high angular resolution imaging, and photometry are able to rule out most false positive interpretations of the transits. Our precise multiwavelength photometry includes two simultaneous detections of the transit of KIC 12557548b using Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/Wide-field InfraRed Camera (CFHT/WIRCam) at 2.15 μm and the Kepler space telescope at 0.6 μm, as well as simultaneous null-detections of the transit by Kepler and HST/WFC3 at 1.4 μm. Our simultaneous HST/WFC3 and Kepler null-detections provide no evidence for radically different transit depths at these wavelengths. Our simultaneous CFHT/WIRCam detections in the near-infrared and with Kepler in the optical reveal very similar transit depths (the average ratio of the transit depths at ∼2.15 μm compared with ∼0.6 μm is: 1.02 ± 0.20). This suggests that if the transits we observe are due to scattering from single-size particles streaming from the planet in a comet-like tail, then the particles must be ∼0.5 μm in radius or larger, which would favor that KIC 12557548b is a sub-Mercury rather than super-Mercury mass planet.
- OSTI ID:
- 22356951
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 786, 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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