paper

Confirmation of the radial velocity super-Earth K2-18c with HARPS and CARMENES

arXiv:1810.04731 · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201833995

Abstract

In an earlier campaign to characterize the mass of the transiting temperate super-Earth K2-18b with HARPS, a second, non-transiting planet was posited to exist in the system at days. Further radial velocity follow-up with the CARMENES spectrograph visible channel revealed a much weaker signal at 9 days which also appeared to vary chromatically and temporally leading to the conclusion that the origin of the 9 day signal was more likely to be related to stellar activity than to being planetary. Here we conduct a detailed re-analysis of all available RV time-series, including a set of 31 previously unpublished HARPS measurements, to investigate the effects of time-sampling and of simultaneous modelling of planetary + activity signals on the existence and origin of the curious 9 day signal. We conclude that the 9 day signal is real and was initially seen to be suppressed in the CARMENES data due to a small number of anomalous measurements, although the exact cause of these anomalies remains unknown. Investigation of the signal's evolution in time, with wavelength, and detailed model comparison reveals that the 9 day signal is most likely planetary in nature. By this analysis, we reconcile the conflicting HARPS and CARMENES results and measure precise and self-consistent planet masses of and M. This work, along with the previously published RV papers on the K2-18 planetary system, highlight the importance of understanding one's time-sampling and of simultaneous planet + stochastic activity modelling, particularly when searching for sub-Neptune-sized planets with radial velocities.

arXiv comment19 pages, 10 figures (including 9 interactive figures when viewed in Adobe Acrobat), accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

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