Systematic search for long-term transit duration changes in Kepler transiting planets

Abstract

Holczer, Mazeh, and collaborators (HM+16) used the Kepler four-year observations to derive a transit-timing catalog, identifying 260 Kepler objects of interest (KOI) with significant transit timing variations (TTV). For KOIs with high enough SNRs, HM+16 also derived the duration and depth of their transits. In the present work, we use the duration measurements of HM+16 to systematically study the duration changes of 561 KOIs and identify 15 KOIs with a significant long-term linear change of transit durations and another 16 KOIs with an intermediate significance. We show that the observed linear trend is probably caused by a precession of the orbital plane of the transiting planet, induced in most cases by another planet. The leading term of the precession rate depends on the mass and relative inclination of the perturber, and the period ratio between the two orbits, but not on the mass and period of the transiting planet itself. Interestingly, our findings indicate that, as a sample, the detected time derivatives of the durations get larger as a function of the planetary orbital period, probably because short-period planetary systems display small relative inclinations. The results might indicate that short-period planets reside in relatively flattened planetary systems, suggesting these systems experienced stronger dissipation either when formed or when migrated to short orbits. This should be used as a possible clue for the formation of such systems.

arXiv comment19 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (60)

• On the Unique Solution of Planet and Star Parameters from an Extrasolar Planet Transit Light Curve
• DHP Framework: Digital Health Passports Using Blockchain -- Use case on international tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic
• On detecting terrestrial planets with timing of giant planet transits
• Architecture and Dynamics of Kepler's Candidate Multiple Transiting Planet Systems
• Architecture of Kepler's Multi-transiting Systems: II. New investigations with twice as many candidates
• Validation of Kepler's Multiple Planet Candidates. III: Light Curve Analysis & Announcement of Hundreds of New Multi-planet Systems
• Extracting Planet Mass and Eccentricity From TTV data
• The California-Kepler Survey V. Peas in a Pod: Planets in a Kepler Multi-planet System are Similar in Size and Regularly Spaced
• Orbital perturbations on transiting planets: A possible method to measure stellar quadrupoles and to detect Earth-mass planets
• About 30% of Sun-like Stars Have Kepler-like Planetary Systems: A Study of their Intrinsic Architecture
• 55 Cancri (Copernicus): A Multi-Planet System with a Hot Super-Earth and a Jupiter Analogue
• On the Low False Positive Probabilities of Kepler Planet Candidates
• Architecture of Planetary Systems Based on Kepler Data: Number of Planets and Coplanarity
• Transit Timing Observations from Kepler. IX. Catalog of the Full Long-Cadence Data Set
• Kepler 18-b, c, and d: A System Of Three Planets Confirmed by Transit Timing Variations, Lightcurve Validation, Spitzer Photometry and Radial Velocity Measurements
• The statistics of multi-planet systems
• Kepler Multi-Planet Systems Exhibit Unexpected Intra-system Uniformity in Mass and Radius
• The Detection and Characterization of a Nontransiting Planet by Transit Timing Variations
• KOI-142, the King of Transit Variations, is a Pair of Planets near the 2:1 Resonance
• The Kepler-19 System: A Transiting 2.2 R_Earth Planet and a Second Planet Detected via Transit Timing Variations
• Secure TTV Mass Measurements: Ten Kepler Exoplanets between 3 and 8 Earth Masses with Diverse Densities and Incident Fluxes
• Asymmetric transit curves as indication of orbital obliquity: clues from the late-type dwarf companion in KOI-13
• A Dynamical Analysis of the Kepler-80 System of Five Transiting Planets
• Architectures of Exoplanetary Systems. I: A Clustered Forward Model for Exoplanetary Systems around Kepler's FGK Stars
• On The Relative Sizes of Planets Within Kepler Multiple Candidate Systems
• Measurement of planet masses with transit timing variations due to synodic "chopping" effects
• Detection of Potential Transit Signals in 17 Quarters of Kepler Data: Results of the Final Kepler Mission Transiting Planet Search (DR25)
• The Planetary Mass-Radius Relation and its Dependence on Orbital Period as Measured by Transit Timing Variations and Radial Velocities
• Spin-orbit Misalignment as a Driver of the Kepler Dichotomy
• Larger mutual inclinations for the shortest-period planets
• Spin-orbit resonance, transit duration variation and possible secular perturbations in KOI-13
• Numerical and Analytical Modelling of Transit Time Variations
• Kepler-108: A Mutually Inclined Giant Planet System
• HARPS-N radial velocities confirm the low densities of the Kepler-9 planets
• A Compact Multi-Planet System With A Significantly Misaligned Ultra Short Period Planet
• Compact planetary systems perturbed by an inclined companion: I. Vectorial representation of the secular model
• Eccentric Companions to Kepler-448b and Kepler-693b: Clues to the Formation of Warm Jupiters
• Secular Effects of Tidal Damping in Compact Planetary Systems
• Absolute masses and radii determination in multiplanetary systems without stellar models
• A spectral approach to transit timing variations
• K2-146: Discovery of Planet c, Precise Masses from Transit Timing, and Observed Precession
• A population of planetary systems characterized by short-period, Earth-sized planets
• SOPHIE velocimetry of Kepler transit candidates XIV. A joint photometric, spectroscopic, and dynamical analysis of the Kepler-117 system
• The Origin of Systems of Tightly Packed Inner Planets with Misaligned, Ultra-Short-Period Companions
• Kepler Object of Interest Network II. Photodynamical modelling of Kepler-9 over 8 years of transit observations
• Transit Timing Variations and linear ephemerides of confirmed Kepler transiting exoplanets
• Mutual Inclination Excitation by Stellar Oblateness
• Stellar Oblateness versus Distant Giants in Exciting Kepler Planet Mutual Inclinations
• Spin-Orbit Misalignment and Precession in the Kepler-13Ab Planetary System
• The clockwork is moving on -- a combined analysis of TESS and Kepler measurements of Kepler-13Ab
• Photo-Dynamical Analysis of Three Kepler Objects of Interest with Significant Transit Timing Variations
• Visual Analysis and Demographics of Kepler Transit Timing Variations
• Masses of Kepler-46b, c from Transit Timing Variations
• A Flat Inner Disk Model as an Alternative to the Kepler Dichotomy in the Q1 to Q16 Planet Population
• Polar stellar-spots and grazing planetary transits: possible explanation for the low number of discovered grazing planets
• Transit Duration Variations in Multi-Planet Systems
• Inclination Dynamics of Resonant Planets under the Influence of an Inclined External Companion
• Nodal Precession in Closely Spaced Planet Pairs
• Robustly detecting changes in warm Jupiters' transit impact parameters
• Kepler-9: the First Multi-Transiting System and the First Transit Timing Variations

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Edge-of-the-Multis: Evidence for a Transition in the Outer Architectures of Compact Multi-Planet Systems
• Physical Properties and Impact Parameter Variations of Kepler Planets from Analytic Light Curve Modeling
• fBLS -- a fast-folding BLS algorithm
• An Accurate 3D Analytic Model for Exoplanetary Photometry, Radial Velocity, and Astrometry
• Transit Depth Variations Reveal TOI-216 b to be a Super-Puff
• A homogeneous TTV investigation of all TESS systems with a confirmed single transiting planet
• Evidence for a Non-Dichotomous Solution to the Kepler Dichotomy: Mutual Inclinations of Kepler Planetary Systems from Transit Duration Variations
• Accounting for Transit Timing Detectability: Biases in Planetary Radius and Orbital Period