LUNA: An algorithm for generating dynamic planet-moon transits

Abstract

It has been previously shown that moons of extrasolar planets may be detectable with the Kepler Mission, for moon masses above ~0.2 Earth masses Kipping et al. 2009c. Transit timing effects have been formerly identified as a potent tool to this end, exploiting the dynamics of the system. In this work, we explore the simulation of transit light curves of a planet plus a single moon including not only the transit timing effects but also the light curve signal of the moon itself. We introduce our new algorithm, LUNA, which produces transit light curves for both bodies, analytically accounting for shadow overlaps, stellar limb darkening and planet-moon dynamical motion. By building the dynamics into the core of LUNA, the routine automatically accounts for transit timing/duration variations and ingress/egress asymmetries for not only the planet, but also the moon. We then generate some artificial data for two feasibly detectable hypothetical systems of interest: a i) prograde and ii) retrograde Earth-like moon around a habitable-zone Neptune for a M-dwarf system. We fit the hypothetical systems using LUNA and demonstrate the feasibility of detecting these cases with Kepler photometry.

Accepted in MNRAS, 2011 May 16. Minor typos corrected (thanks to S. Awiphan)

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Cited by in corpus (36)

• The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler (HEK): I. Description of a New Observational Project
• KOI-142, the King of Transit Variations, is a Pair of Planets near the 2:1 Resonance
• HEK VI: On the Dearth of Galilean Analogs in Kepler and the Exomoon Candidate Kepler-1625b I
• The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler (HEK): II. Analysis of Seven Viable Satellite-Hosting Planet Candidates
• The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler (HEK): V. A Survey of 41 Planetary Candidates for Exomoons
• The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler (HEK): III. The First Search for an Exomoon around a Habitable-Zone Planet
• Detecting extrasolar moons akin to solar system satellites with an orbital sampling effect
• Transit Model of Planets with Moon and Ring System
• Habitability of Exomoons at the Hill or Tidal Locking Radius
• The Center of Light: Spectroastrometric Detection of Exomoons
• Magnetic shielding of exomoons beyond the circumplanetary habitable edge
• Planet-Planet Occultations in TRAPPIST-1 and Other Exoplanet Systems
• Transit of Exomoon Plasma Tori: New Diagnosis
• How to determine an exomoon's sense of orbital motion
• The Eccentricity Distribution of Short-Period Planet Candidates Detected by Kepler in Occultation
• Discovery of a Transiting Planet Near the Snow-Line
• Loose Ends for the Exomoon Candidate Host Kepler-1625b
• Spitzer Detection of the Transiting Jupiter-analog Exoplanet Kepler-167e
• The Exomoon Corridor: Half of all exomoons exhibit TTV frequencies within a narrow window due to aliasing
• Can close-in giant exoplanets preserve detectable moons?
• The Possible Moon of Kepler-90g is a False Positive
• Accurate Computation of Light Curves and the Rossiter-McLaughlin Effect in Multi-Body Eclipsing Systems
• Transits of Inclined Exomoons - Hide and Seek and an Application to Kepler-1625
• Magnetospheres of Terrestrial Exoplanets and Exomoons: Implications for Habitability and Detection
• Transit Origami: A Method to Coherently Fold Exomoon Transits in Time Series Photometry
• On the Detection of Extrasolar Moons and Rings
• A search for transit timing variations within the exomoon corridor using Kepler data
• Stability and detectability of exomoons orbiting HIP 41378 f, a temperate Jovian planet with an anomalously low apparent density
• Transit Light-curves for Exomoons: Analytical Formalism
• Shadow Imaging of Transiting Objects
• Analytic Light Curve for Mutual Transits of Two Bodies Across a Limb-darkened Star
• Kepler-1708 b-i is likely undetectable with HST
• Identifying Potential Exomoon Signals with Convolutional Neural Networks
• Transit Duration and Timing Variations from Binary Planets
• A differentiable N-body code for transit timing and dynamical modelling -- II. Photodynamics
• Enhanced thermal radiation from a tidally heated exomoon with a single hot spot