PREDICTING A THIRD PLANET IN THE KEPLER-47 CIRCUMBINARY SYSTEM
- Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Korea, Republic of)
- Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii-Manoa, Honolulu, HI (United States)
- Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (United States)
- Toruń Centre for Astronomy of the Nicolai Copernicus University, Grudziadzka 5 (Poland)
We have studied the possibility that a third circumbinary planet in the Kepler-47 planetary system is the source of the single unexplained transiting event reported during the discovery of these planets. We applied the MEGNO technique to identify regions in the phase space where a third planet can maintain quasi-periodic orbits, and assessed the long-term stability of the three-planet system by integrating the entire five bodies (binary + planets) for 10 Myr. We identified several stable regions between the two known planets as well as a region beyond the orbit of Kepler-47c where the orbit of the third planet could be stable. To constrain the orbit of this planet, we used the measured duration of the unexplained transit event (∼4.15 hr) and compared that with the transit duration of the third planet in an ensemble of stable orbits. To remove the degeneracy among the orbits with similar transit durations, we considered the planet to be in a circular orbit and calculated its period analytically. The latter places an upper limit of 424 days on the orbital period of the third planet. Our analysis suggests that if the unexplained transit event detected during the discovery of the Kepler-47 circumbinary system is due to a planetary object, this planet will be in a low eccentricity orbit with a semi-major axis smaller than 1.24 AU. Further constraining of the mass and orbital elements of this planet requires a re-analysis of the entire currently available data, including those obtained post-announcement of the discovery of this system. We present details of our methodology and discuss the implication of the results.
- OSTI ID:
- 22364448
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 799, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Transits of planets with small intervals in circumbinary systems
Discovery of a Third Transiting Planet in the Kepler-47 Circumbinary System