The Illusory Precision of TTV Masses: Hidden Solutions Behind Kepler-9's Tight Mass Ratio

Abstract

Transit timing variations (TTV) are considered a tool for constraining the masses of transiting planets in the absence of radial-velocity data. Although theoretical studies have long revealed that TTV mass determinations intrinsically suffer from degeneracies, existing analyses of TTV data typically report a single-mode solution under a model with a specified number of planets. This is because fitting TTV curves in the high-dimensional solution space of TTV posterior is extremely challenging; even locating a single solution requires substantial computational resources. We developed an efficient mode-first searching algorithm that can locate multiple solutions in a single MCMC run. We applied this algorithm to Kepler-9 b and c, which have the highest-quality TTV data. We found that the observed TTV can be reproduced by many combinations of planetary masses spanning a broad range, rather than the previously assumed precise determination. The mass of Kepler-9 b can range from 31.6 to 47.1 $M_{\oplus}$, while that of Kepler-9 c can range from 21.8 to 32.3 $M_{\oplus}$, and even more broadly under looser constraints. These degenerate solutions follow a linear relationship under a tight mass ratio between the two planets, consistent with previous theoretical predictions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that achieving a globally converged posterior distribution for Kepler-9's TTV is impossible using a sampling algorithm that preserves the Markovian property. This underscores the need for caution when interpreting results from sampling algorithms that lack mathematical guarantees of global convergence.