Five Kepler Target Stars That Show Multiple Transiting Exoplanet Candidates

Steffen, Jason H.; Batalha, Natalie M.; Borucki, W. J.; Buchhave, Lars A.; Caldwell, Douglas A.; Cochran, William D.; Endl, Michael; Fabrycky, Daniel C.; Fressin, François; Ford, Eric B.; Fortney, Jonathan J.; Haas, Michael; Holman, Matthew J.; Howell, Steve B.; Isaacson, Howard; Jenkins, Jon M.; Koch, David; Latham, David W.; Lissauer, Jack J.; Moorhead, Althea V.; Morehead, Robert C.; Marcy, Geoffrey W.; MacQueen, Phillip J.; Quinn, Samuel N.; Ragozzine, Darin; Rowe, Jason F.; Sasselov, Dimitar; Seager, Sara; Torres, Guillermo; Welsh, William F.

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/725/1/1226

Cited by 103 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…NASAʼs Kepler mission has discovered several thousand candidate exoplanet systems, including many hundreds with multiple planets Steffen et al 2010;Batalha et al 2013;Burke et al 2014;Mullally et al 2015;Rowe et al 2015). Among the many interesting systems identified by this mission is Kepler-36, which has two planets orbiting near the 7:6 mean motion resonance (MMR; Carter et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamical Considerations for Life in Multi-Habitable Planetary Systems

Steffen

2016

ApJ

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Inspired by the close-proximity pair of planets in the Kepler-36 system, we consider two effects that may have important ramifications for the development of life in similar systems where a pair of planets may reside entirely in the habitable zone of the hosting star. Specifically, we run numerical simulations to determine whether strong, resonant (or non-resonant) planet-planet interactions can cause large variations in planet obliquity-thereby inducing large variations in climate. We also determine whether or not resonant interactions affect the rate of lithopanspermia between the planet pair-which could facilitate the growth and maintenance of life on both planets. We find that first-order resonances do not cause larger obliquity variations when compared with nonresonant cases. We also find that these resonant interactions are not a primary consideration in lithopanspermia. Lithopanspermia is enhanced significantly as the planet orbits come closer together-reaching nearly the same rate as ejected material falling back to the surface of the originating planet (assuming that the ejected material makes it out to the location of our initial conditions). Thus, in both cases our results indicate that close-proximity planet pairs in multi-habitable systems are conducive to life in the system.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamical Considerations for Life in Multi-Habitable Planetary Systems

Steffen

2016

ApJ

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“…25 Unlikely as it may seem to have three different blends operating in the same system, the large photometric aperture, nearly uninterrupted monitoring, very high photometric precision, and long-term coverage of Kepler coupled with the large number of targets observed makes it more sensitive to picking up odd cases such as this, so they should not be completely ruled out. An example already exists among the five multi-planet candidates recently reported by Steffen et al (2010), in which one of the systems (KOI-191) presents three transit-like signals, and one of those signals (0.4 mmag depth) has been shown to be due to a background eclipsing binary 2.6 mag fainter than the target, located 1.5 arcsec away.…”

Section: Stellar Properties and Photometrymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Science results from the mission have already begun to appear (Borucki et al , 2011Steffen et al 2010). As shown already by ground-based surveys for transiting planets, 19 NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…A number of other tests have been developed that can aid in understanding the nature of the candidate, and that rely on the long-term and nearly continuous photometric monitoring of Kepler, as well as the very high astrometric precision achieved in determining the centroids of the stars (see also Steffen et al 2010). These tests include: (1) verifying that alternating events have the same depth, which they may not if the signal is due to a background eclipsing binary; (2) checking for the presence of shallow secondary eclipses, which are common in eclipsing binaries but are not expected for the smallest planets; (3) checking for ellipsoidal variations, which could be another sign of a blend; (4) checking for changes in the centroid positions correlated with the brightness changes, which, if detected, might indicate a blend, or at the very least, a crowded aperture.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both hierarchical triples and background blends can be explored. A restricted application of this type of modeling to Kepler has already been made for the five multi-planet candidates announced recently by Steffen et al (2010). For the present paper we have chosen to illustrate the full potential of the method, which we refer to as BLENDER, by applying it to the unique case of Kepler Object of Interest 377 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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MODELINGKEPLERTRANSIT LIGHT CURVES AS FALSE POSITIVES: REJECTION OF BLEND SCENARIOS FOR KEPLER-9, AND VALIDATION OF KEPLER-9 d, A SUPER-EARTH-SIZE PLANET IN A MULTIPLE SYSTEM

Torres

Fressin

Batalha

et al. 2010

ApJ

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233

176

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Light curves from the Kepler Mission contain valuable information on the nature of the phenomena producing the transit-like signals. To assist in exploring the possibility that they are due to an astrophysical false positive, we describe a procedure (BLENDER) to model the photometry in terms of a "blend" rather than a planet orbiting a star. A blend may consist of a background or foreground eclipsing binary (or star-planet pair) whose eclipses are attenuated by the light of the candidate and possibly other stars within the photometric aperture. We apply BLENDER to the case of Kepler-9 (KIC 3323887), a target harboring two previously confirmed Saturn-size planets (Kepler-9 b and Kepler-9 c) showing transit timing variations, and an additional shallower signal with a 1.59 day period suggesting the presence of a super-Earth-size planet. Using BLENDER together with constraints from other follow-up observations we are able to rule out all blends for the two deeper signals and provide independent validation of their planetary nature. For the shallower signal, we rule out a large fraction of the false positives that might mimic the transits. The false alarm rate for remaining blends depends in part (and inversely) on the unknown frequency of small-size planets. Based on several realistic estimates of this frequency, we conclude with very high confidence that this small signal is due to a super-Earth-size planet (Kepler-9 d) in a multiple system, rather than a false positive. The radius is determined to be 1.64 +0.19 −0.14 R ⊕ , and current spectroscopic observations are as yet insufficient to establish its mass.

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Search for circum‐planetary material and orbital period variations of short‐period Kepler exoplanet candidates

et al. 2014

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A unique short-period (P = 0.65356(1) d) Mercury-size Kepler exoplanet candidate KIC012557548b has been discovered recently by Rappaport et al. (2012). This object is a transiting disintegrating exoplanet with a circum-planetary material-comet-like tail. Close-in exoplanets, like KIC012557548b, are subjected to the greatest planet-star interactions. This interaction may have various forms. In certain cases it may cause formation of the comet-like tail. Strong interaction with the host star, and/or presence of an additional planet may lead to variations in the orbital period of the planet. Our main aim is to search for comet-like tails similar to KIC012557548b and for long-term orbital period variations. We are curious about frequency of comet-like tail formation among short-period Kepler exoplanet candidates. We concentrate on a sample of 20 close-in candidates with a period similar to KIC012557548b from the Kepler mission. We first improved the preliminary orbital periods and obtained the transit light curves. Subsequently we searched for the signatures of a circum-planetary material in these light curves. For this purpose the final transit light curve of each planet was fitted with a theoretical light curve, and the residuals were examined for abnormalities. We then searched for possible long-term changes of the orbital periods using the method of phase dispersion minimization. In 8 cases out of 20 we found some interesting peculiarities, but none of the exoplanet candidates showed signs of a comet-like tail. It seems that the frequency of comet-like tail formation among short-period Kepler exoplanet candidates is very low. We searched for comet-like tails based on the period criterion. Based on our results we can conclude that the short-period criterion is not enough to cause comet-like tail formation. This result is in agreement with the theory of the thermal wind and planet evaporation (PerezBecker & Chiang 2013). We also found 3 cases of candidates which showed some changes of the orbital period. Based on our results we can see that orbital period changes are not caused by comet-like tail disintegration processes, but rather by possible massive outer companions.

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Five Kepler Target Stars That Show Multiple Transiting Exoplanet Candidates

Cited by 103 publications

References 48 publications

Dynamical Considerations for Life in Multi-Habitable Planetary Systems

Dynamical Considerations for Life in Multi-Habitable Planetary Systems

MODELINGKEPLERTRANSIT LIGHT CURVES AS FALSE POSITIVES: REJECTION OF BLEND SCENARIOS FOR KEPLER-9, AND VALIDATION OF KEPLER-9 d, A SUPER-EARTH-SIZE PLANET IN A MULTIPLE SYSTEM

Search for circum‐planetary material and orbital period variations of short‐period Kepler exoplanet candidates

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