Exoplanetology: Exoplanets & Exomoons

Planetary Mass Determinations from a Simplified Photodynamical Model — Application To The Complete Kepler Dataset

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.EP

October 17, 2024

Filed under astro-ph.EP, data, exoplanet, Kepler, Kepler-345 b, KOI-1977.02, PLATO, PyDynamicaLC

Planetary Mass Determinations from a Simplified Photodynamical Model — Application To The Complete Kepler Dataset — Comparison of the mass estimates of objects with both literature and this work’s mass estimates significant to better than 3σ. The red symbols use older references (2014 and earlier), while the blue symbols use newer references (2015 and later). The recent estimates are more consistent with our own than earlier ones – demonstrating increasing agreement between different analyses of the same objects. We labeled systems in which the newer literature mass estimates differ from our own by more than 4σ.Note that there are duplicate entries: if multiple solutions are given in the paper – both appear here (with a common abscissa value). Also, if more than one literature source exists – all will be given (with a common ordinate value). — astro-ph.EP

We use PyDynamicaLC, a model using the least number of, and the least correlated, degrees of freedom needed to derive a photodynamical model, to describe some of the smallest — and lowest TTV (transit timing variations) amplitude — of the Kepler planets. We successfully analyze 64 systems containing 218 planets, for 88 of which we were able to determine significant masses (to better than 3σ).

We demonstrate consistency with literature results over two orders of magnitude in mass, and for the planets that already had literature mass estimations, we were able to reduce the relative mass error by ∼22% (median value).

Of the planets with determined masses 23 are new mass determinations with no previous significant literature value, including a planet smaller and lighter than Earth (KOI-1977.02 / Kepler-345 b). These results demonstrate the power of photodynamical modeling with the appropriately chosen degrees of freedom.

This will become increasingly more important as smaller planets are detected, especially as the TESS mission gathers ever longer-baseline light curves and for the analysis of the future PLATO mission data

Aviv Ofir, Gideon Yoffe, Oded Aharonson

Comments: 10 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables. AJ accepted
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:2410.11401 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2410.11401v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.11401
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Submission history
From: Aviv Ofir
[v1] Tue, 15 Oct 2024 08:47:00 UTC (199 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.11401

Astrobiology

Keith Cowing

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) 🖖🏻

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