arXiv subjects

Jason H. Steffen

Publications and source records attributed to Jason H. Steffen.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

The crucial role of ground-based, Doppler measurements for the future of exoplanet science

We outline the important role that ground-based, Doppler monitoring of exoplanetary systems will play in advancing our theories of planet formation and dynamical evolution. A census of planetary systems requires a well designed survey to be executed over the course of a decade or longer. A coordinated survey to monitor several thousand targets each at ~1000 epochs (~3-5 million new observations) will require roughly 40 dedicated spectrographs. We advocate for improvements in data management, data sharing, analysis techniques, and software testing, as well as possible changes to the funding structures for exoplanet science.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2018

Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. VIII. A Fully Automated Catalog With Measured Completeness and Reliability Based on Data Release 25

We present the Kepler Object of Interest (KOI) catalog of transiting exoplanets based on searching four years of Kepler time series photometry (Data Release 25, Q1-Q17). The catalog contains 8054 KOIs of which 4034 are planet candidates with periods between 0.25 and 632 days. Of these candidates, 219 are new and include two in multi-planet systems (KOI-82.06 and KOI-2926.05), and ten high-reliability, terrestrial-size, habitable zone candidates. This catalog was created using a tool called the Robovetter which automatically vets the DR25 Threshold Crossing Events (TCEs, Twicken et al. 2016). The Robovetter also vetted simulated data sets and measured how well it was able to separate TCEs caused by noise from those caused by low signal-to-noise transits. We discusses the Robovetter and the metrics it uses to sort TCEs. For orbital periods less than 100 days the Robovetter completeness (the fraction of simulated transits that are determined to be planet candidates) across all observed stars is greater than 85%. For the same period range, the catalog reliability (the fraction of candidates that are not due to instrumental or stellar noise) is greater than 98%. However, for low signal-to-noise candidates between 200 and 500 days around FGK dwarf stars, the Robovetter is 76.7% complete and the catalog is 50.5% reliable. The KOI catalog, the transit fits and all of the simulated data used to characterize this catalog are available at the NASA Exoplanet Archive.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2017

Dynamics and Collisional Evolution of Closely Packed Planetary Systems

High-multiplicity Kepler systems (referred to as Kepler multis) are often tightly packed and may be on the verge of instability. Many systems of this type could have experienced past instabilities, where the compact orbits and often low densities make physical collisions likely outcomes. We use numerical simulations to study the dynamical instabilities and planet-planet interactions in a synthetically generated sample of closely-packed, high-multiplicity systems. We focus specifically on systems resembling Kepler-11, a Kepler multi with six planets, and run a suite of dynamical integrations, sampling the initial orbital parameters around the nominal values reported in Lissauer et al. (2011a), finding that most of the realizations are unstable, resulting in orbit crossings and, eventually, collisions and mergers. We study in detail the dependence of stability on the orbital parameters of the planets and planet-pair characteristics to identify possible precursors to instability, compare the systems that emerge from dynamical instabilities to the observed Kepler sample (after applying observational corrections), and propose possible observable signatures of these instabilities. We examine the characteristics of each planet-planet collision, categorizing collisions by the degree of contact and collision energy, and find that grazing collisions are more common than direct impacts. Since the structure of many planets found in Kepler multis is such that the mass is dominated by a rocky core, but the volume is dominated by a low-density gaseous envelope, the sticky-sphere approximation may not be valid, and we present hydrodynamic calculations of planet-planet collisions clearly deviating from this approximation. Finally, we rerun a subset of our dynamical calculations using instead a modified prescription to handle collisions, finding, in general, higher multiplicity remnant systems.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2016

A population of planetary systems characterized by short-period, Earth-sized planets

We analyze data from the Quarter 1-17 Data Release 24 (Q1--Q17 DR24) planet candidate catalog from NASA's Kepler mission, specifically comparing systems with single transiting planets to systems with multiple transiting planets, and identify a distinct population of exoplanets with a necessarily distinct system architecture. Such an architecture likely indicates a different branch in their evolutionary past relative to the typical Kepler system. The key feature of these planetary systems is an isolated, Earth-sized planet with a roughly one-day orbital period. We estimate that at least 24 of the 144 systems we examined (>~17%) are members of this population. Accounting for detection efficiency, such planetary systems occur with a frequency similar to the hot Jupiters.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2016

A Dynamical Analysis of the Kepler-80 System of Five Transiting Planets

Kepler has discovered hundreds of systems with multiple transiting exoplanets which hold tremendous potential both individually and collectively for understanding the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Many of these systems consist of multiple small planets with periods less than ~50 days known as Systems with Tightly-spaced Inner Planets, or STIPs. One especially intriguing STIP, Kepler-80 (KOI-500), contains five transiting planets: f, d, e, b, and c with periods of 1.0, 3.1, 4.6, 7.1, 9.5 days, respectively. We provide measurements of transit times and a transit timing variation (TTV) dynamical analysis. We find that TTVs cannot reliably detect eccentricities for this system, though mass estimates are not affected. Restricting the eccentricity to a reasonable range, we infer masses for the outer four planets (d, e, b, and c) to be $6.75^{+0.69}_{-0.51}$, $4.13^{+0.81}_{-0.95}$, $6.93^{+1.05}_{-0.70}$, and $6.74^{+1.23}_{-0.86}$ Earth masses, respectively. The similar masses but different radii are consistent with terrestrial compositions for d and e and $\sim$2% H/He envelopes for b and c. We confirm that the outer four planets are in a rare dynamical configuration with four interconnected three-body resonances that are librating with few degree amplitudes. We present a formation model that can reproduce the observed configuration by starting with a multi-resonant chain and introducing dissipation. Overall, the information-rich Kepler-80 planets provide an important perspective into exoplanetary systems.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2016

Transit Timing Observations from Kepler. IX. Catalog of the Full Long-Cadence Data Set

We present a new transit timing catalog of 2599 Kepler Objects of Interest (=KOIs), using the PDC-MAP long-cadence light curves that include the full seventeen quarters of the mission (ftp://wise- ftp.tau.ac.il/pub/tauttv/TTV/ver_112). The goal is to produce an easy-to-use catalog that can stimulate further analyses of interesting systems. For 779 KOIs with high enough SNRs, we derived the timing, duration and depth of 69,914 transits. For 1820 KOIs with lower SNR, we derived only the timing of 225,273 transits. After removal of outlier timings, we derived various statistics for each KOI that were used to indicate significant variations. Including systems found by previous works, we have detected 260 KOIs which showed significant TTVs with long-term variations (>100 day), and another fourteen KOIs with periodic modulations shorter than 100 day and small amplitudes. For five of those, the periodicity is probably due to the crossing of rotating stellar spots by the transiting planets.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2016

Kepler-1647b: the largest and longest-period Kepler transiting circumbinary planet

We report the discovery of a new Kepler transiting circumbinary planet (CBP). This latest addition to the still-small family of CBPs defies the current trend of known short-period planets orbiting near the stability limit of binary stars. Unlike the previous discoveries, the planet revolving around the eclipsing binary system Kepler-1647 has a very long orbital period (~1100 days) and was at conjunction only twice during the Kepler mission lifetime. Due to the singular configuration of the system, Kepler-1647b is not only the longest-period transiting CBP at the time of writing, but also one of the longest-period transiting planets. With a radius of 1.06+/-0.01 RJup it is also the largest CBP to date. The planet produced three transits in the light-curve of Kepler-1647 (one of them during an eclipse, creating a syzygy) and measurably perturbed the times of the stellar eclipses, allowing us to measure its mass to be 1.52+/-0.65 MJup. The planet revolves around an 11-day period eclipsing binary consisting of two Solar-mass stars on a slightly inclined, mildly eccentric (e_bin = 0.16), spin-synchronized orbit. Despite having an orbital period three times longer than Earth's, Kepler-1647b is in the conservative habitable zone of the binary star throughout its orbit.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2015

Dynamical considerations for life in multihabitable planetary systems

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 compared with non-resonant cases. We also find that 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 multihabitable systems are conducive to life in the system.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2015

Sensitivity bias in the mass-radius distribution from Transit Timing Variations and Radial Velocity measurements

Motivated by recent discussions, both in private and in the literature, we use a Monte Carlo simulation of planetary systems to investigate sources of bias in determining the mass-radius distribution of exoplanets for the two primary techniques used to measure planetary masses---Radial Velocities (RVs) and Transit Timing Variations (TTVs). We assert that mass measurements derived from these two methods are comparably reliable---as the physics underlying their respective signals is well understood. Nevertheless, their sensitivity to planet mass varies with the properties of the planets themselves. We find that for a given planet size, the RV method tends to find planets with higher mass while the sensitivity of TTVs is more uniform. This ``sensitivity bias'' implies that a complete census of TTV systems is likely to yield a more robust estimate of the mass-radius distribution provided there are not important physical differences between planets near and far from mean-motion resonance. We discuss differences in the sensitivity of the two methods with orbital period and system architecture, which may compound the discrepancies between them (e.g., short period planets detectable by RVs may be more dense due to atmospheric loss). We advocate for continued mass measurements using both approaches as a means both to measure the masses of more planets and to identify potential differences in planet structure that may result from their dynamical and environmental histories.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2015

Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler VI: Planet Sample from Q1-Q16 (47 Months)

\We present the sixth catalog of Kepler candidate planets based on nearly 4 years of high precision photometry. This catalog builds on the legacy of previous catalogs released by the Kepler project and includes 1493 new Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs) of which 554 are planet candidates, and 131 of these candidates have best fit radii <1.5 R_earth. This brings the total number of KOIs and planet candidates to 7305 and 4173 respectively. We suspect that many of these new candidates at the low signal-to-noise limit may be false alarms created by instrumental noise, and discuss our efforts to identify such objects. We re-evaluate all previously published KOIs with orbital periods of >50 days to provide a consistently vetted sample that can be used to improve planet occurrence rate calculations. We discuss the performance of our planet detection algorithms, and the consistency of our vetting products. The full catalog is publicly available at the NASA Exoplanet Archive.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2015

Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler V: Planet Sample from Q1-Q12 (36 Months)

The Kepler mission discovered 2842 exoplanet candidates with 2 years of data. We provide updates to the Kepler planet candidate sample based upon 3 years (Q1-Q12) of data. Through a series of tests to exclude false-positives, primarily caused by eclipsing binary stars and instrumental systematics, 855 additional planetary candidates have been discovered, bringing the total number known to 3697. We provide revised transit parameters and accompanying posterior distributions based on a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm for the cumulative catalogue of Kepler Objects of Interest. There are now 130 candidates in the cumulative catalogue that receive less than twice the flux the Earth receives and more than 1100 have a radius less than 1.5 Rearth. There are now a dozen candidates meeting both criteria, roughly doubling the number of candidate Earth analogs. A majority of planetary candidates have a high probability of being bonafide planets, however, there are populations of likely false-positives. We discuss and suggest additional cuts that can be easily applied to the catalogue to produce a set of planetary candidates with good fidelity. The full catalogue is publicly available at the NASA Exoplanet Archive.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2015

The period ratio distribution of Kepler's candidate multiplanet systems

We calculate and analyze the distribution of period ratios observed in systems of Kepler exoplanet candidates including studies of both adjacent planet pairs and all planet pairs. These distributions account for both the geometrical bias against detecting more distant planets and the effects of incompleteness due to planets missed by the data reduction pipeline. In addition to some of the known features near first-order mean-motion resonances (MMR), there is a significant excess of planet pairs with period ratios near 2.2. The statistical significance of this feature is assessed using Monte Carlo simulation. We also investigate the distribution of period ratios near first-order MMR and compare different quantities used to measure this distribution. We find that beyond period ratios of ~2.5, the distribution of all period ratios follows a power-law with an exponent -1.26 +/- 0.05. We discuss implications that these results may have on the formation and dynamical evolution of Kepler-like planetary systems---systems of sub-Neptune/super-Earth planets with relatively short orbital periods.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2014

KIC 9632895 - The 10th Kepler Transiting Circumbinary Planet

We present the discovery of KIC 9632895b, a 6.2 Earth-radius planet in a low-eccentricity, 240.5-day orbit about an eclipsing binary. The binary itself consists of a 0.93 and 0.194 solar mass pair of stars with an orbital period of 27.3 days. The plane of the planet's orbit is rapidly precessing, and its inclination only becomes sufficiently aligned with the primary star in the latter portion of the Kepler data. Thus three transits are present in the latter half of the light curve, but none of the three conjunctions that occurred during the first half of the light curve produced transits. The precession period is ~103 years, and during that cycle, transits are visible only ~8% of the time. This has the important implication that for every system like KIC 9632895 that we detect, there are ~12 circumbinary systems that exist but are not currently exhibiting transits. The planet's mass is too small to noticeably perturb the binary, consequently its mass is not measurable with these data; but our photodynamical model places a 1-sigma upper limit of 16 Earth masses. With a period 8.8 times that of the binary, the planet is well outside the dynamical instability zone. It does, however, lie within the habitable zone of the binary, and making it the third of ten Kepler circumbinary planets to do so.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2014

From Hot Jupiters to Super-Earths via Roche Lobe Overflow

Through tidal dissipation in a slowly spinning host star the orbits of many hot Jupiters may decay down to the Roche limit. We expect that in most cases the ensuing mass transfer will be stable. Using detailed numerical calculations we find that this evolution is quite rapid, potentially leading to complete removal of the gaseous envelope in a few Gyr, and leaving behind an exposed rocky core ("hot super-Earth"). Final orbital periods are quite sensitive to the details of the planet's mass-radius relation, and to the effects of irradiation and photo-evaporation, but could be as short as a few hours, or as long as several days. Our scenario predicts the existence of planets with intermediate masses ("hot Neptunes") that should be found precisely at their Roche limit and in the process of losing mass through Roche lobe overflow. The observed excess of small single-planet candidate systems observed by Kepler may also be the result of this process. If so, the properties of their host stars should track those of the hot Jupiters. Moreover, the number of systems that produced hot Jupiters could be 2-3 times larger than one would infer from contemporary observations.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2014

Architecture of Kepler's Multi-transiting Systems: II. New investigations with twice as many candidates

We report on the orbital architectures of Kepler systems having multiple planet candidates identified in the analysis of data from the first six quarters of Kepler data and reported by Batalha et al. (2013). These data show 899 transiting planet candidates in 365 multiple-planet systems and provide a powerful means to study the statistical properties of planetary systems. Using a generic mass-radius relationship, we find that only two pairs of planets in these candidate systems (out of 761 pairs total) appear to be on Hill-unstable orbits, indicating ~96% of the candidate planetary systems are correctly interpreted as true systems. We find that planet pairs show little statistical preference to be near mean-motion resonances. We identify an asymmetry in the distribution of period ratios near first-order resonances (e.g., 2:1, 3:2), with an excess of planet pairs lying wide of resonance and relatively few lying narrow of resonance. Finally, based upon the transit duration ratios of adjacent planets in each system, we find that the interior planet tends to have a smaller transit impact parameter than the exterior planet does. This finding suggests that the mode of the mutual inclinations of planetary orbital planes is in the range 1.0-2.2 degrees, for the packed systems of small planets probed by these observations.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2014

Validation of Kepler's Multiple Planet Candidates. III: Light Curve Analysis & Announcement of Hundreds of New Multi-planet Systems

The Kepler mission has discovered over 2500 exoplanet candidates in the first two years of spacecraft data, with approximately 40% of them in candidate multi-planet systems. The high rate of multiplicity combined with the low rate of identified false-positives indicates that the multiplanet systems contain very few false-positive signals due to other systems not gravitationally bound to the target star (Lissauer, J. J., et al., 2012, ApJ 750, 131). False positives in the multi- planet systems are identified and removed, leaving behind a residual population of candidate multi-planet transiting systems expected to have a false-positive rate less than 1%. We present a sample of 340 planetary systems that contain 851 planets that are validated to substantially better than the 99% confidence level; the vast majority of these have not been previously verified as planets. We expect ~2 unidentified false-positives making our sample of planet very reliable. We present fundamental planetary properties of our sample based on a comprehensive analysis of Kepler light curves and ground-based spectroscopy and high-resolution imaging. Since we do not require spectroscopy or high-resolution imaging for validation, some of our derived parameters for a planetary system may be systematically incorrect due to dilution from light due to additional stars in the photometric aperture. None the less, our result nearly doubles the number of verified exoplanets.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2014

Validation of Kepler's Multiple Planet Candidates. II: Refined Statistical Framework and Descriptions of Systems of Special Interest

We extend the statistical analysis of Lissauer et al. (2012, ApJ 750, 112), which demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of Kepler candidate multiple transiting systems (multis) represent true transiting planets, and develop therefrom a procedure to validate large numbers of planet candidates in multis as bona fide exoplanets. We show that this statistical framework correctly estimates the abundance of false positives already identified around Kepler targets with multiple sets of transit-like signatures based on their abundance around targets with single sets of transit-like signatures. We estimate the number of multis that represent split systems of one or more planets orbiting each component of a binary star system. We use the high reliability rate for multis to validate more than one dozen particularly interesting multi-planet systems are validated in a companion paper by Rowe et al. (2014, ApJ, this issue). We note that few very short period (P < 1.6 days) planets orbit within multiple transiting planet systems and discuss possible reasons for their absence. There also appears to be a shortage of planets with periods exceeding a few months in multis.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2014

Masses, Radii, and Orbits of Small Kepler Planets: The Transition from Gaseous to Rocky Planets

We report on the masses, sizes, and orbits of the planets orbiting 22 Kepler stars. There are 49 planet candidates around these stars, including 42 detected through transits and 7 revealed by precise Doppler measurements of the host stars. Based on an analysis of the Kepler brightness measurements, along with high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy, Doppler spectroscopy, and (for 11 stars) asteroseismology, we establish low false-positive probabilities for all of the transiting planets (41 of 42 have a false-positive probability under 1%), and we constrain their sizes and masses. Most of the transiting planets are smaller than 3X the size of Earth. For 16 planets, the Doppler signal was securely detected, providing a direct measurement of the planet's mass. For the other 26 planets we provide either marginal mass measurements or upper limits to their masses and densities; in many cases we can rule out a rocky composition. We identify 6 planets with densities above 5 g/cc, suggesting a mostly rocky interior for them. Indeed, the only planets that are compatible with a purely rocky composition are smaller than ~2 R_earth. Larger planets evidently contain a larger fraction of low-density material (H, He, and H2O).

astro-ph.EP↗