On the Orbital Inclination of Proxima Centauri b

Abstract

The field of exoplanetary science has seen discovery rates increase dramatically over recent years, due largely to the data from the Kepler mission. Even so, individual discoveries of planets orbiting nearby stars are very important for studies of characterization and near-term follow-up prospects. The recent discovery of a terrestrial planet candidate orbiting Proxima Centauri presents numerous opportunities for studying a Super-Earth within our own stellar backyard. One of the remaining ambiguities of the discovery is the true mass of the planet since the discovery signature was obtained via radial velocities. Here we describe the effect of orbital inclination on the Proxima Centauri planet, in terms of mass, radius, atmosphere, and albedo. We calculate the astrometric, angular separation, and reflected light properties of the planet including the effects of orbital eccentricity. We further provide dynamical simulations that show how the presence of additional terrestrial planets within the Habitable Zone varies as a function of inclination. Finally, we discuss these effects in the context of future space-based photometry and imaging missions that could potentially detect the planetary signature and resolve the inclination and mass ambiguity of the planet.

arXiv comment10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in AJ, references updated

References in corpus (47)

• Gaia Data Release 1. Summary of the astrometric, photometric, and survey properties
• Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars: New Estimates
• A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri
• Most 1.6 Earth-Radius Planets are not Rocky
• Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars: Dependence on Planetary Mass
• The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets XXXI. The M-dwarf sample
• Gaia Data Release 1: Astrometry - one billion positions, two million proper motions and parallaxes
• The Mass-Radius Relation for 65 Exoplanets Smaller than 4 Earth Radii
• Discovery and spectroscopy of the young Jovian planet 51 Eri b with the Gemini Planet Imager
• Astrometric exoplanet detection with Gaia
• Photometric Light Curves and Polarization of Close-in Extrasolar Giant Planets
• Science performance of Gaia, ESA's space-astrometry mission
• The XXL Survey: I. Scientific motivations - XMM-Newton observing plan - Follow-up observations and simulation programme
• The habitability of Proxima Centauri b II. Possible climates and Observability
• The habitability of Proxima Centauri b. I. Irradiation, rotation and volatile inventory from formation to the present
• Periodic Flux Variability of Stars due to the Reflex Doppler Effect Induced by Planetary Companions
• The Mass of Kepler-93b and The Composition of Terrestrial Planets
• The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets. XIII. A planetary system with 3 Super-Earths (4.2, 6.9, & 9.2 Earth masses)
• Photometric detection of non-transiting short-period low-mass companions through the beaming, ellipsoidal and reflection effects in Kepler and CoRoT lightcurves
• Atmospheric characterization of Proxima b by coupling the Sphere high-contrast imager to the Espresso spectrograph
• Bayesian search for low-mass planets around nearby M dwarfs. Estimates for occurrence rate based on global detectability statistics
• Beaming Binaries - a New Observational Category of Photometric Binary Stars
• A Catalog of Kepler Habitable Zone Exoplanet Candidates
• Habitable-zone super-Earth candidate in a six-planet system around the K2.5V star HD 40307
• Thermal phase curves of nontransiting terrestrial exoplanets 1. Characterizing atmospheres
• Tidal Limits to Planetary Habitability
• The Habitable Zone Gallery
• Planet-planet scattering leads to tightly packed planetary systems
• MOST Observations of our Nearest Neighbor: Flares on Proxima Centauri
• Phase Functions and Light Curves of Wide Separation Extrasolar Giant Planets
• Prospects for Characterizing the Atmosphere of Proxima Centauri b
• Observational biases in determining extrasolar planet eccentricities in single-planet systems
• Refining Exoplanet Ephemerides and Transit Observing Strategies
• No Conclusive Evidence for Transits of Proxima b in MOST photometry
• Photometric Phase Variations of Long-Period Eccentric Planets
• Orbital Dynamics of Multi-Planet Systems with Eccentricity Diversity
• Proxima Centauri as a Benchmark for Stellar Activity Indicators in the Near Infrared
• The Habitability of Proxima Centauri b I: Evolutionary Scenarios
• Thermal phase curves of non-transiting terrestrial exoplanets 2. Characterizing airless planets
• On the Inclination Dependence of Exoplanet Phase Signatures
• Completeness of Imaging Surveys for Eccentric Exoplanets
• Detectability of Exoplanet Periastron Passage in the Infra-Red
• Microlensing Events by Proxima Centauri in 2014 and 2016: Opportunities for Mass Determination and Possible Planet Detection
• Distinguishing Between Stellar and Planetary Companions With Phase Monitoring
• Exploring plausible formation scenarios for the planet candidate orbiting Proxima Centauri
• Biofluorescent Worlds II. Biological fluorescence induced by stellar UV flares, a new temporal biosignature
• The complementarity of astrometric and radial velocity exoplanet observations - Determining exoplanet mass with astrometric snapshots

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Obliquity and Eccentricity Constraints For Terrestrial Exoplanets
• Probabilistic Constraints on the Mass and Composition of Proxima b
• The Demographics of Terrestrial Planets in the Venus Zone
• 3-D climate simulations for the detectability of Proxima Centauri b
• Exocomets in the Proxima Centauri system and their importance for water transport
• Thermal and orbital evolution of low-mass exoplanets
• A Multi-Year Search For Transits Of Proxima Centauri. I: Light Curves Corresponding To Published Ephemerides
• Estimating Planetary Mass with Deep Learning
• Direct detection and characterization of M-dwarf planets using light echoes
• Exoplanet Atmosphere Measurements from Direct Imaging
• Dynamical evolution and stability maps of the Proxima Centauri system