Exoplanetology: Exoplanets & Exomoons

Prospects From TESS And Gaia To Constrain The Flatness Of Planetary Systems

By Keith Cowing
Status Report
astro-ph.EP
December 11, 2023
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Prospects From TESS And Gaia To Constrain The Flatness Of Planetary Systems
Left: Histogram of the number of cold Jupiters that should be detected as a function of the size of the inner planet. Right: Scatter plot of stellar distance vs. stellar effective temperature of all TOIs. Color represents the probability of detecting the cold Jupiter. — astro-ph.EP

The mutual inclination between planets orbiting the same star provides key information to understand the formation and evolution of multi-planet systems.

In this work, we investigate the potential of Gaia astrometry in detecting and characterizing cold Jupiters in orbits exterior to the currently known TESS planet candidates. According to our simulations, out of the ∼3350 systems expected to have cold Jupiter companions, Gaia, by its nominal 5-year mission, should be able to detect ∼200 cold Jupiters and measure the orbital inclinations with a precision of σcosi<0.2 in ∼120 of them.

These numbers are estimated under the assumption that the orbital orientations of the CJs follow an isotropic distribution, but these only vary slightly for less broad distributions. We also discuss the prospects from radial velocity follow-ups to better constrain the derived properties and provide a package to do quick forecasts using our Fisher matrix analysis.

Overall, our simulations show that Gaia astrometry of cold Jupiters orbiting stars with TESS planets can distinguish dynamically cold (mean mutual inclination ≲5∘) from dynamically hot systems (mean mutual inclination ≳20∘), placing a new set of constraints on their formation and evolution.

Juan I. Espinoza-Retamal, Wei Zhu, Cristobal Petrovich

Comments: 11 pages, 4 figures. Under review at AJ, after 1st round of referee review
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2309.08665 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2309.08665v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Juan Ignacio Espinoza Retamal
[v1] Fri, 15 Sep 2023 18:00:04 UTC (856 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.08665
Astrobiology,

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻