Validation of 12 small Kepler transiting planets in the habitable zone
Article
Article Title | Validation of 12 small Kepler transiting planets in the habitable zone |
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ERA Journal ID | 1057 |
Article Category | Article |
Authors | Torres, Guillermo (Author), Kipping, David M. (Author), Fressin, Francois (Author), Caldwell, Douglas A. (Author), Twicken, Joseph D. (Author), Ballard, Sarah (Author), Batalha, Natalie M. (Author), Bryson, Stephen T. (Author), Ciardi, David R. (Author), Henze, Christopher E. (Author), Howell, Steve B. (Author), Isaacson, Howard T. (Author), Jenkins, Jon M. (Author), Muirhead, Philip S. (Author), Newton, Elisabeth R. (Author), Petigura, Erik A. (Author), Barclay, Thomas (Author), Borucki, William J. (Author), Crepp, Justin R. (Author), Everett, Mark E. (Author), Horch, Elliott P. (Author), Howard, Andrew W. (Author), Kolbl, Rea (Author), Marcy, Geoffrey W. (Author), McCauliff, Sean (Author) and Quintana, Elisa V. (Author) |
Journal Title | The Astrophysical Journal: an international review of astronomy and astronomical physics |
Journal Citation | 800 (2), pp. 99-122 |
Article Number | 99 |
Number of Pages | 24 |
Year | 2015 |
Publisher | IOP Publishing |
Place of Publication | United States |
ISSN | 0004-637X |
1538-4357 | |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/800/2/99 |
Web Address (URL) | http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/800/2/99 |
Abstract | We present an investigation of 12 candidate transiting planets from Kepler with orbital periods ranging from 34 to 207 days, selected from initial indications that they are small and potentially in the habitable zone (HZ) of their parent stars. Few of these objects are known. The expected Doppler signals are too small to confirm them by demonstrating that their masses are in the planetary regime. Here we verify their planetary nature by validating them statistically using the BLENDER technique, which simulates large numbers of false positives and compares the resulting light curves with the Kepler photometry. This analysis was supplemented with new follow-up observations (high-resolution optical and near-infrared spectroscopy, adaptive optics imaging, and speckle interferometry), as well as an analysis of the flux centroids. For 11 of them (KOI-0571.05, 1422.04, 1422.05, 2529.02, 3255.01, 3284.01, 4005.01, 4087.01, 4622.01, 4742.01, and 4745.01) we show that the likelihood they are true planets is far greater than that of a false positive, to a confidence level of 99.73% (3σ) or higher. For KOI-4427.01 the confidence level is about 99.2% (2.6σ). With our accurate characterization of the GKM host stars, the derived planetary radii range from 1.1 to 2.7 R ⊕. All 12 objects are confirmed to be in the HZ, and nine are small enough to be rocky. Excluding three of them that have been previously validated by others, our study doubles the number of known rocky planets in the HZ. KOI-3284.01 (Kepler-438b) and KOI-4742.01 (Kepler-442b) are the planets most similar to the Earth discovered to date when considering their size and incident flux jointly. |
Keywords | methods: statistical; planetary systems; stars: individual (KOI-3284 (Kepler-438), KOI-4742 (Kepler-442)); techniques: photometric; |
Contains Sensitive Content | Does not contain sensitive content |
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 510109. Stellar astronomy and planetary systems |
Public Notes | For access to this article, please click on the URL link provided. |
Institution of Origin | University of Southern Queensland |
Byline Affiliations | Center for Astrophysics Harvard and Smithsonian, United States |
NASA Ames Research Center, United States | |
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States | |
University of Washington, United States | |
University of California, United States | |
Boston University, United States | |
University of Notre Dame, United States | |
National Optical Astronomy Observatory, United States | |
Southern Connecticut State University, United States | |
University of Hawaii, United States |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/q4306/validation-of-12-small-kepler-transiting-planets-in-the-habitable-zone
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