KIC 8462852: Will the Trojans return in 2021?

Abstract

KIC 8462852 stood out among more than 100,000 stars in the Kepler catalogue because of the strange features of its light curve: a wide, asymmetric dimming taking up to 15 per cent of the light at D793 and a period of multiple, narrow dimmings happening approximately 700 days later. Several models have been proposed to account for this abnormal behaviour, most of which require either unlikely causes or a finely-tuned timing. We aim at offering a relatively natural solution, invoking only phenomena that have been previously observed, although perhaps in larger or more massive versions. We model the system using a large, ringed body whose transit produces the first dimming and a swarm of Trojan objects sharing its orbit that causes the second period of multiple dimmings. The resulting orbital period is $T\approx 12$ years, with a semi-major axis $a\approx 6$ au. Our model allows us to make two straightforward predictions: we expect the passage of a new swarm of Trojans in front of the star starting during the early months of 2021, and a new transit of the main object during the first half of 2023.

5 pages, 2 figures. v3: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

References in corpus (5)

• Observational Constraints on Trojans of Transiting Extrasolar Planets
• KIC 8462852 Faded Throughout the Kepler Mission
• The differing magnitude distributions of the two Jupiter Trojan color populations
• Photometric and astrometric vagaries of the enigma star KIC 8462852
• Sonneberg plate photometry for Boyajian's Star in two passbands

Cited by in corpus (5)

• GJ 273: On the formation, dynamical evolution and habitability of a planetary system hosted by an M dwarf at 3.75 parsec
• The TROY project: Searching for co-orbital bodies to known planets. I. Project goals and first results from archival radial velocity
• Detection of a repeated transit signature in the light curve of the enigma star KIC 8462852: a 928-day period?
• Hundreds of new periodic signals detected in the first year of $TESS$ with the $\mathtt{weirddetector}$
• High-resolution spectroscopy of Boyajian's star during optical dimming events