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Published August 10, 2014 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

The Radius Distribution of Planets around Cool Stars

Abstract

We calculate an empirical, non-parametric estimate of the shape of the period-marginalized radius distribution of planets with periods less than 150 days using the small yet well-characterized sample of cool (T_(eff) < 4000 K) dwarf stars in the Kepler catalog. In particular, we present and validate a new procedure, based on weighted kernel density estimation, to reconstruct the shape of the planet radius function down to radii smaller than the completeness limit of the survey at the longest periods. Under the assumption that the period distribution of planets does not change dramatically with planet radius, we show that the occurrence of planets around these stars continues to increase to below 1 R_⊕, and that there is no strong evidence for a turnover in the planet radius function. In fact, we demonstrate using many iterations of simulated data that a spurious turnover may be inferred from data even when the true distribution continues to rise toward smaller radii. Finally, the sharp rise in the radius distribution below ~3 R_⊕ implies that a large number of planets await discovery around cool dwarfs as the sensitivities of ground-based transit surveys increase.

Additional Information

© 2014 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 March 12; Accepted 2014 June 8; Published 2014 July 21. The authors acknowledge John Johnson and the Caltech Exolab for nurturing the intellectual environment in which this work took shape, in particular, conversations with Phil Muirhead, Leslie Rogers, Avi Shporer, Ben Montet, and Jean- Michel Desert. T.D.M. thanks Ed Turner and David Hogg for supportive conversations regarding this analysis, and Frank Porter for very helpful tips regarding density estimation, and for his willingness to share the draft version of his book (Narsky & Porter 2013), by which the bootstrap techniques used in this work were inspired. We also thank Peter Goldreich for an enlightening conversation about rocky planet formation, Dave Charbonneau and Courtney Dressing for helpful comments on an early draft. T.D.M. acknowledges support from the Kepler Participating Scientist Program, NASA NNX11AG85G.

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Published - 0004-637X_791_1_10.pdf

Submitted - 1303.3013v2.pdf

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August 22, 2023
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