No Arabic abstract
We present results of a Bayesian analysis of radial velocity (RV) data for the star HIP 5158, confirming the presence of two companions and also constraining their orbital parameters. Assuming Keplerian orbits, the two-companion model is found to be e^{48} times more probable than the one-planet model, although the orbital parameters of the second companion are only weakly constrained. The derived orbital periods are 345.6 +/- 2.0 d and 9017.8 +/- 3180.7 d respectively, and the corresponding eccentricities are 0.54 +/- 0.04 and 0.14 +/- 0.10. The limits on planetary mass (m sin i) and semimajor axis are (1.44 +/- 0.14 M_{J}, 0.89 +/- 0.01 AU) and (15.04 +/- 10.55 M_{J}, 7.70 +/- 1.88 AU) respectively. Owing to large uncertainty on the mass of the second companion, we are unable to determine whether it is a planet or a brown dwarf. The remaining `noise (stellar jitter) unaccounted for by the model is 2.28 +/- 0.31 m/s. We also analysed a three-companion model, but found it to be e^{8} times less probable than the two-companion model.
In 2015, K2 observations of the bright (V = 8.9, K = 7.7) star HIP 41378 revealed a rich system of at least five transiting exoplanets, ranging in size from super-Earths to gas giants. The 2015 K2 observations only spanned 74.8 days, and the outer three long-period planets in the system were only detected with a single transit, so their orbital periods and transit ephemerides could not be determined at that time. Here, we report on 50.8 days of new K2 observations of HIP 41378 from summer 2018. These data reveal additional transits of the long-period planets HIP 41378 d and HIP 41378 f, yielding a set of discrete possible orbital periods for these two planets. We identify the most probable orbital periods for these two planets using our knowledge of the planets transit durations, the host stars properties, the systems dynamics, and data from the ground-based HATNet, KELT, and WASP transit surveys. Targeted photometric follow-up during the most probable future transit times will be able to determine the planets orbital periods, and will enable future observations with facilities like the James Webb Space Telescope. The methods developed herein to determine the most probable orbital periods will be important for long-period planets detected by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, where similar period ambiguities will frequently arise due to the telescopes survey strategy.
The existence of hot Jupiters has challenged theories of planetary formation since the first extrasolar planets were detected. Giant planets are generally believed to form far from their host stars, where volatile materials like water exist in their solid phase, making it easier for giant planet cores to accumulate. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain how giant planets can migrate inward from their birth sites to short-period orbits. One such mechanism, called Kozai-Lidov migration, requires the presence of distant companions in orbits inclined by more than $sim40$ degrees with respect to the plane of the hot Jupiters orbit. The high occurrence rate of wide companions in hot Jupiter systems lends support to this theory for migration. However, the exact orbital inclinations of these detected planetary and stellar companions is not known, so it is not clear whether the mutual inclination of these companions is large enough for the Kozai-Lidov process to operate. This paper shows that in systems orbiting cool stars with convective outer layers, the orbits of most wide planetary companions to hot Jupiters must be well aligned with the orbits of the hot Jupiters and the spins of the host stars. For a variety of possible distributions for the inclination of the companion, the width of the distribution must be less than $sim20$ degrees to recreate the observations with good fidelity. As a result, the companion orbits are likely well-aligned with those of the hot Jupiters, and the Kozai-Lidov mechanism does not enforce migration in these systems.
We report a new giant planet orbiting the K giant HD 155233, as well as four stellar-mass companions from the Pan-Pacific Planet Search, a southern hemisphere radial velocity survey for planets orbiting nearby giants and subgiants. We also present updated velocities and a refined orbit for HD 47205b (7 CMa b), the first planet discovered by this survey. HD 155233b has a period of 885$pm$63 days, eccentricity e=0.03$pm$0.20, and m sin i=2.0$pm$0.5 M_jup. The stellar-mass companions range in m sin i from 0.066 M_sun to 0.33 M_sun. Whilst HD 104358B falls slightly below the traditional 0.08 M_sun hydrogen-burning mass limit, and is hence a brown dwarf candidate, we estimate only a 50% a priori probability of a truly substellar mass.
Radial-velocity (RV) planet searches are often polluted by signals caused by gas motion at the stars surface. Stellar activity can mimic or mask changes in the RVs caused by orbiting planets, resulting in false positives or missed detections. Here we use Gaussian process (GP) regression to disentangle the contradictory reports of planets vs. rotation artifacts in Kapteyns star (Anglada-Escude et al. 2014, Robertson et al. 2015, Anglada-Escude et al. 2016). To model rotation, we use joint quasi-periodic kernels for the RV and H-alpha signals, requiring that their periods and correlation timescales be the same. We find that the rotation period of Kapteyns star is 125 days, while the characteristic active-region lifetime is 694 days. Adding a planet to the RV model produces a best-fit orbital period of 100~years, or 10 times the observing time baseline, indicating that the observed RVs are best explained by star rotation only. We also find no significant periodic signals in residual RV data sets constructed by subtracting off realizations of the best-fit rotation model and conclude that both previously reported planets are artifacts of the stars rotation and activity. Our results highlight the pitfalls of using sinusoids to model quasi-periodic rotation signals.
Since the discovery of the first extrasolar giant planets around Sun-like stars, evolving observational capabilities have brought us closer to the detection of true Earth analogues. The size of an exoplanet can be determined when it periodically passes in front of (transits) its parent star, causing a decrease in starlight proportional to its radius. The smallest exoplanet hitherto discovered has a radius 1.42 times that of the Earths radius (R Earth), and hence has 2.9 times its volume. Here we report the discovery of two planets, one Earth-sized (1.03R Earth) and the other smaller than the Earth (0.87R Earth), orbiting the star Kepler-20, which is already known to host three other, larger, transiting planets. The gravitational pull of the new planets on the parent star is too small to measure with current instrumentation. We apply a statistical method to show that the likelihood of the planetary interpretation of the transit signals is more than three orders of magnitude larger than that of the alternative hypothesis that the signals result from an eclipsing binary star. Theoretical considerations imply that these planets are rocky, with a composition of iron and silicate. The outer planet could have developed a thick water vapour atmosphere.