Can Dips of Boyajian's Star be Explained by Circumsolar Rings?

Abstract

Could the dips of "Boyajian's Star" (KIC 8462852) have been caused by matter in our Solar System? The interval between periods of deep dips is nearly twice the orbital period of the Kepler satellite. I consider heliocentric obscuring rings in the outer Solar System that graze the line of sight to the star once per orbit of Kepler. The hypothesis predicts that future dips may be observed from Earth during windows separated by a year, although their detailed structure depends on the distribution of particles along the ring. Dips observed at terrestrial sites separated by > 1000 km in a direction perpendicular to the Earth's orbital motion may be uncorrelated.

6 pages, 4 figures; revised and expanded

References in corpus (2)

• Families of Plausible Solutions to the Puzzle of Boyajian's Star
• KIC 8462852 Faded Throughout the Kepler Mission

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Fast Radio Bursts
• The First Post-Kepler Brightness Dips of KIC 8462852
• Extinction and the Dimming of KIC 8462852
• The Little Dippers: Transits of Star-grazing Exocomets?
• Where Is the Flux Going? The Long-Term Photometric Variability of Boyajian's Star
• Shadow Imaging of Transiting Objects
• Hundreds of new periodic signals detected in the first year of $TESS$ with the $\mathtt{weirddetector}$
• The year-long flux variations in Boyajian's star are asymmetric or aperiodic
• High-resolution spectroscopy of Boyajian's star during optical dimming events
• Extrasolar enigmas: from disintegrating exoplanets to exoasteroids