Detecting General Relativistic Orbital Precession in Transiting Hot Jupiters

Abstract

Both classical and relativistic weak-field and slow-motion perturbations to planetary orbits can be treated as perturbative corrections to the Keplerian model. In particular, tidal forces and General Relativity (GR) induce small precession rates of the apsidal line. Accurate measurements of these effects in transiting exoplanets could be used to test GR and to gain information about the planetary interiors. Unfortunately, models for transiting planets have a high degree of degeneracy in the orbital parameters that, combined to the uncertainties of photometric transit observations, results in large errors on the determinations of the argument of periastron and precludes a direct evaluation of the apsidal line precession. Moreover, tidal and GR precession time-scales are many order of magnitudes larger than orbital periods, so that on the observational time-spans required to cumulate a precession signal enough strong to be detected, even small systematic errors in transit ephemerides add up to cancel out the tiny variations due to precession. Here we present a more feasible solution to detect tidal and GR precession rates through the observation of variations of the time interval ($\Delta \tau$) between primary and secondary transits of hot Jupiters and propose the most promising target for such detection, WASP-14 b. For this planet we expect a cumulated $\Delta \tau$ $\approx$ -250 s, due to tidal and relativistic precession, since its first photometric observations.

arXiv commentThis paper has been accepted for publication by MNRAS

References in corpus (34)

• Gaia Data Release 2: The astrometric solution
• Origins of Hot Jupiters
• Homogeneous studies of transiting extrasolar planets. IV. Thirty systems with space-based light curves
• Giant Planets at Small Orbital Distances
• The GAPS Programme with HARPS-N@TNG XIV. Investigating giant planet migration history via improved eccentricity and mass determination for 231 transiting planets
• Orbital perturbations on transiting planets: A possible method to measure stellar quadrupoles and to detect Earth-mass planets
• Probing the Interiors of Very Hot Jupiters Using Transit Light Curves
• General Relativity and Cosmology: Unsolved Questions and Future Directions
• HAT-P-32b and HAT-P-33b: Two Highly Inflated Hot Jupiters Transiting High-Jitter Stars
• Homogeneous studies of transiting extrasolar planets. V. New results for 38 planets
• Friends of Hot Jupiters II: No Correspondence Between Hot-Jupiter Spin-Orbit Misalignment and the Incidence of Directly Imaged Stellar Companions
• The Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Program for JWST
• 3.6 and 4.5 $\mu$m Phase Curves of the Highly-Irradiated Eccentric Hot Jupiter WASP-14b
• Using long-term transit timing to detect terrestrial planets
• WASP-14b: 7.3 Mj transiting planet in an eccentric orbit
• Observability of the General Relativistic Precession of Periastra in Exoplanets
• A Third Exoplanetary System with Misaligned Orbital and Stellar Spin Axes
• Statistical Characterization of Hot Jupiter Atmospheres using Spitzer's Secondary Eclipses
• HAT-P-30b: A transiting hot Jupiter on a highly oblique orbit
• A high binary fraction for the most massive close-in giant planets and brown dwarf desert members
• Thermal Emission of WASP-14b Revealed with Three Spitzer Eclipses
• Periastron Precession Measurements in Transiting Extrasolar Planetary Systems at the Level of General Relativity
• KELT-2Ab: A Hot Jupiter Transiting the Bright (V=8.77) Primary Star of a Binary System
• Orbital period variations of hot-Jupiters caused by the Applegate effect
• Exploring a Stream of Highly-Eccentric Binaries with Kepler
• Orbital eccentricity of WASP-12 and WASP-14 from new radial-velocity monitoring with SOPHIE
• Constraints on the Atmospheric Circulation and Variability of the Eccentric Hot Jupiter XO-3b
• TASTE: The Asiago Search for Transit timing variations of Exoplanets. I. Overview and improved parameters for HAT-P-3b and HAT-P-14b
• Accurate characterization of the stellar and orbital parameters of the exoplanetary system WASP-33 b from orbital dynamics
• Classical and relativistic node precessional effects in WASP-33b and perspectives for detecting them
• Classical and relativistic long-term time variations of some observables for transiting exoplanets
• Detecting the General Relativistic Orbital Precession of the Exoplanet HD 80606b
• The ARIEL Mission Reference Sample
• WASP-14 b: Transit Timing analysis of 19 light curves

Cited by in corpus (9)

• TASTE V. A new ground-based investigation of orbital decay in the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-12b
• Transit Timing Variation of XO-3b: Evidence for Tidal Evolution of Hot Jupiter with High Eccentricity
• Post-Newtonian effects on some characteristic timescales of transiting exoplanets
• TESS Timings of 31 Hot Jupiters with Ephemeris Uncertainties
• Frame-Dragging in Extrasolar Circumbinary Planetary Systems
• Detecting and Monitoring Tidal Dissipation of Hot Jupiters in the Era of SiTian
• When the anomalistic, draconitic and sidereal orbital periods do not coincide: the impact of post-Keplerian perturbing accelerations
• Breaking the Mass Inclination Degeneracy of Radial Velocity Measurements via Monitoring von Zeipel-Lidov-Kozai Cycles: Implications in the HD 41004 System
• The Influence of General Relativity on the Spins of Celestial Bodies in Inclined Orbits