Placing Limits On The Transit Timing Variations Of Circumbinary Exoplanets

Abstract

We present an efficient analytical method to predict the maximum transit timing variations of a circumbinary exoplanet, given some basic parameters of the host binary. We derive an analytical model giving limits on the potential location of transits for coplanar planets orbiting eclipsing binaries, then test it against numerical N-body simulations of a distribution of binaries and planets. We also show the application of the analytic model to Kepler-16b, -34b and -35b. The resulting method is fast, efficient and is accurate to approximately 1% in predicting limits on possible times of transits over a three-year observing campaign. The model can easily be used to, for example, place constraints on transit timing while performing circumbinary planet searches on large datasets. It is adaptable to use in situations where some or many of the planet and binary parameters are unknown.

Accepted to MNRAS, 9 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (3)

• The Transiting Circumbinary Planets Kepler-34 and Kepler-35
• The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS)
• Geometrical and Physical Properties of Circumbinary Discs in Eccentric Stellar Binaries

Cited by in corpus (16)

• On the Abundance of Circumbinary Planets
• Planets Transiting Non-Eclipsing Binaries
• The BEBOP radial-velocity survey for circumbinary planets I. Eight years of CORALIE observations of 47 single-line eclipsing binaries and abundance constraints on the masses of circumbinary planets
• Circumbinary planets - why they are so likely to transit
• Listening to the gravitational wave sound of circumbinary exoplanets
• Assessing Circumbinary Habitable Zones using Latitudinal Energy Balance Modelling
• Circumbinary planets II - when transits come and go
• Populations of planets in multiple star systems
• The binary mass ratios of circumbinary planet hosts
• An Automated Method to Detect Transiting Circumbinary Planets
• Searching for Small Circumbinary Planets I. The STANLEY Automated Algorithm and No New Planets in Existing Systems
• Running The Gauntlet -- Survival of Small Circumbinary Planets Migrating Through Destabilising Resonances
• Sculpting the circumbinary planet size distribution through resonant interactions with companion planets
• On the Detection of Non-Transiting Hot Jupiters in Multiple-Planet Systems
• Statistical properties of habitable zones in stellar binary systems
• Circumbinary Planets -- The Next Steps