Multiple Transits during a Single Conjunction: Identifying Transiting Circumbinary Planetary Candidates from TESS
Abstract
We present results of a study on identifying circumbinary planet candidates that produce multiple transits during one conjunction with eclipsing binary systems. The occurrence of these transits enables us to estimate the candidates' orbital periods, which is crucial as the periods of the currently known transiting circumbinary planets are significantly longer than the typical observational baseline of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Combined with the derived radii, it also provides valuable information needed for follow-up observations and subsequent confirmation of a large number of circumbinary planet candidates from TESS. Motivated by the discovery of the 1108 day circumbinary planet Kepler-1647, we show the application of this technique to four of Kepler's circumbinary planets that produce such transits. Our results indicate that in systems where the circumbinary planet is on a low-eccentricity orbit, the estimated planetary orbital period is within <10%–20% of the true value. This estimate is derived from photometric observations spanning less than 5% of the planet's period, demonstrating the strong capability of the technique. Capitalizing on the current and future eclipsing binaries monitored by NASA's TESS mission, we estimate that hundreds of circumbinary planet candidates producing multiple transits during one conjunction will be detected in the TESS data. Such a large sample will enable statistical understanding of the population of planets orbiting binary stars and shed new light on their formation and evolution.
Additional Information
© 2020 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2018 August 5; revised 2020 August 3; accepted 2020 August 5; published 2020 September 21. We thank the referee for helping us improve this manuscript. N.H. acknowledges support from NASA XRP through grant No. 80NSSC18K0519. W.F.W. and J.A.O. gratefully acknowledge support from the NSF—this material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. (AST-1617004). We would like to thank John Hood, Jr. for his generous donation supporting this "CBP 1-2 punch" investigation, and exoplanet research at SDSU, in general.Attached Files
Published - Kostov_2020_AJ_160_174.pdf
Accepted Version - 2008.02756.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 105486
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20200923-102335878
- 80NSSC18K0519
- NASA
- AST-1617004
- NSF
- Created
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2020-09-23Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field