The Observational Effects and Signatures of Tidally Distorted Solid Exoplanets

Abstract

Our work examines the detectability of tidally distorted solid exoplanets in synchronous rotation. Previous work has shown that tidally distorted shapes of close-in gas giants can give rise to radius underestimates and subsequently density overestimates for those planets. We examine the assumption that such an effect is too minimal for rocky exoplanets and find that for smaller M Class stars there may be an observationally significant tidal distortion effect at very close-in orbits. We quantify the effect for different stellar types and planetary properties using some basic assumptions. Finally, we develop a simple analytic expression to test if there are detectable bulge signatures in the photometry of a system. We find that close in for smaller M Class stars there may be an observationally significant signature that may manifest itself in both in-transit bulge signatures and ellipsoidal variations.