We add 9 new observations of NY Vir and identify four others from AASVO database. Our results indicste that the one and two exo-planet predictions made by earlier authors do not match these new results.
We report here the tentative discovery of a Jovian planet in orbit around the rapidly pulsating subdwarf B-type (sdB-type) eclipsing binary NY Vir. By using new determined eclipse times together with those collected from the literature, we detect that the observed-calculated (O-C) curve of NY Vir shows a small-amplitude cyclic variation with a period of 7.9,years and a semiamplitude of 6.1,s, while it undergoes a downward parabolic change (revealing a period decrease at a rate of $dot{P}=-9.2times{10^{-12}}$). The periodic variation was analyzed for the light-travel time effect via the presence of a third body. The mass of the tertiary companion was determined to be $M_3sin{i^{prime}}=2.3(pm0.3)$,$M_{Jupiter}$ when a total mass of 0.60,$M_{odot}$ for NY Vir is adopted. This suggests that it is most probably a giant circumbinary planet orbiting NY Vir at a distance of about 3.3 astronomical units (AU). Since the rate of period decrease can not be explained by true angular momentum loss caused by gravitational radiation or/and magnetic braking, the observed downward parabolic change in the O-C diagram may be only a part of a long-period (longer than 15 years) cyclic variation, which may reveal the presence of another Jovian planet ($sim2.5$$M_{Jupiter}$) in the system.
The abundance and properties of planets orbiting binary stars - circumbinary planets - are largely unknown because they are difficult to detect with currently available techniques. Results from the Kepler satellite and other studies indicate a minimum occurrence rate of circumbinary giant planets of ~10 %, yet only a handful are presently known. Here, we study the potential of ESAs Gaia mission to discover and characterise extrasolar planets orbiting nearby binary stars by detecting the binarys periodic astrometric motion caused by the orbiting planet. We expect that Gaia will discover hundreds of giant planets around binaries with FGK dwarf primaries within 200 pc of the Sun, if we assume that the giant planet mass distribution and abundance are similar around binaries and single stars. If on the other hand all circumbinary gas giants have masses lower than two Jupiter masses, we expect only four detections. Gaia is critically sensitive to the properties of giant circumbinary planets and will therefore make the detailed study of their population possible. Gaias precision is such that the distribution in mutual inclination between the binary and planetary orbital planes will be obtained. It also possesses the capacity to establish the frequency of planets across the H-R diagram, both as a function of mass and of stellar evolutionary state from pre-main sequence to stellar remnants. Gaias discoveries can reveal whether a second epoch of planetary formation occurs after the red-giant phase.
Up to present date, no circumbinary planet around contact binaries were discovered neither by transit method nor by the minima times variation, although they are known having third component stars around. We thus ask: where are the circumbinary planets of contact binaries? By considering the physical and geometrical parameters we simulated the light curves of contact binaries with possible transiting circumbinary jovian planets. It seems either the circumbinary jovian planets are not formed around contact binaries, probably due to dynamical effects of the binary and third component stars, or they are present but the discovery of such planets were not possible so far due to larger distortions then expected in the photometric data and in the minima times.
We use a one-dimensional (1-D) cloud-free climate model to estimate habitable zone (HZ) boundaries for terrestrial planets of masses 0.1 M$_{E}$ and 5 M$_{E}$ around circumbinary stars of various spectral type combinations. Specifically, we consider binary systems with host spectral types F-F, F-G, F-K, F-M, G-G, G-K, G-M, K-K, K-M and M-M. Scaling the background N2 atmospheric pressure with the radius of the planet, we find that the inner edge of the HZ moves inwards towards the star for 5ME compared to 0.1ME planets for all spectral types. This is because the water-vapor column depth is smaller for larger planets and higher temperatures are needed before water vapor completely dominates the outgoing longwave radiation. The outer edge of the HZ changes little due to competing effects of the albedo and greenhouse effect. While these results are broadly consistent with the trend of single star HZ results for different mass planets, there are significant differences between single star and binary star systems for the inner edge of the HZ. Interesting combinations of stellar pairs from our 1-D model results can be used to explore for in-depth climate studies with 3-D climate models. We identify a common HZ stellar flux domain for all circumbinary spectral types
We present here the first observationally based determination of the rate of occurrence of circumbinary planets. This is derived from the publicly available Kepler data, using an automated search algorithm and debiasing process to produce occurrence rates implied by the seven systems already known. These rates depend critically on the planetary inclination distribution: if circumbinary planets are preferentially coplanar with their host binaries, as has been suggested, then the rate of occurrence of planets with $R_p>6R_oplus$ orbiting with $P_p<300$ d is $10.0 ^{+18}_{-6.5}$% (95% confidence limits), higher than but consistent with single star rates. If on the other hand the underlying planetary inclination distribution is isotropic, then this occurrence rate rises dramatically, to give a lower limit of 47%. This implies that formation and subsequent dynamical evolution in circumbinary disks must either lead to largely coplanar planets, or proceed with significantly greater ease than in circumstellar disks. As a result of this investigation we also show that giant planets (${>}10R_oplus$) are significantly less common in circumbinary orbits than their smaller siblings, and confirm that the proposed shortfall of circumbinary planets orbiting the shorter period binaries in the Kepler sample is a real effect.