Masses and orbital inclinations of planets in the PSR B1257+12 system

Abstract

We present measurements of the true masses and orbital inclinations of the two Earth-mass planets in the PSR B1257+12 system, based on the analysis of their mutual gravitational perturbations detectable as microsecond variations of the arrival times of radio pulses from the pulsar. The 6.2-millisecond pulsar, PSR B1257+12, has been regularly timed with the Arecibo telescope since late 1990. Assuming the standard pulsar mass of 1.4 M_Sun, the derived masses of planets B and C are 4.3 +/- 0.2 M_Earth and 3.9 +/- 0.2 M_Earth, respectively. The corresponding orbital inclinations of 53.4 and 47.3 deg (or 127 and 133 deg) imply that the two orbits are almost coplanar. This result, together with the known near 3:2 resonance between the orbits of the two planets, strongly supports the hypothesis of a disk origin of the PSR B1257+12 planetary system. The system's long-term stability is guaranteed by the low, Earth-like masses of planets B and C.

arXiv comment2 figures, to appear in ApJL

References in corpus (7)

• Neutron Star Mass Measurements. I. Radio Pulsars
• Possible Commensurabilities Among Pairs of Extrasolar Planets
• Binary and Millisecond Pulsars at the New Millennium
• Implications of the PSR 1257+12 Planetary System for Isolated Millisecond Pulsars
• Resonance in PSR B1257+12 Planetary System
• Improved timing formula for the PSR B1257+12 planetary system
• Similarities Between the Inner Solar System and the Planetary System of PSR B1257+12

Cited by in corpus (66)

• The Occurrence and Architecture of Exoplanetary Systems
• A ~ 7.5 Earth-Mass Planet Orbiting the Nearby Star, GJ 876
• High-precision timing of 42 millisecond pulsars with the European Pulsar Timing Array
• Formation of the Terrestrial Planets from a Narrow Annulus
• Assessing the Role of Spin Noise in the Precision Timing of Millisecond Pulsars
• Architecture of Planetary Systems Based on Kepler Data: Number of Planets and Coplanarity
• The statistics of multi-planet systems
• Masses and Orbital Constraints for the OGLE-2006-BLG-109Lb,c Jupiter/Saturn Analog Planetary System
• Rocking the Lighthouse: Circumpulsar Asteroids and Radio Intermittency
• The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets XIX. Characterization and dynamics of the GJ876 planetary system
• Characterization of Gravitational Microlensing Planetary Host Stars
• Pulsars as Tools for Fundamental Physics and Astrophysics
• A Planetary Mass Companion to the K0 Giant HD 17092
• A LOFAR census of millisecond pulsars
• Magnetospheric Radio Emission from Extrasolar Giant Planets: The Role of the Host Stars
• On the migration-induced resonances in a system of two planets with masses in the Earth mass range
• Orbital Period Variations in Eclipsing Post Common Envelope Binaries
• An Asteroid Belt Interpretation for the Timing Variations of the Millisecond Pulsar B1937+21
• The mass of Beta Pictoris c from Beta Pictoris b orbital motion
• SGRs and AXPs as rotation powered massive white dwarfs
• Modeling the 3--D Secular Planetary Three-Body Problem. Discussion on the outer $\upsilon$ Andromedae Planetary System
• The NANOGrav Nine-year Data Set: Astrometric Measurements of 37 Millisecond Pulsars
• High-resolution spectroscopic follow-up of OGLE planetary transit candidates in the Galactic bulge: two possible Jupiter-mass planets and two blends
• The GJ 876 Planetary System -- A Progress Report
• The Radial Velocity TATOOINE Search for Circumbinary Planets: Planet Detection Limits for a Sample of Double-lined Binary Stars - Initial Results from Keck I/Hires, Shane/CAT/Hamspec and TNG/Sarg Observations
• Planet formation from the ejecta of common envelopes
• Long term stability and dynamical environment of the PSR 1257+12 planetary system
• Nuclear Dominated Accretion Flows in Two Dimensions. II. Ejecta dynamics and nucleosynthesis for CO and ONe white dwarfs
• PSR J2322$-$2650 -- A low-luminosity millisecond pulsar with a planetary-mass companion
• Exoplanet recycling in massive white-dwarf debris discs
• Spitzer/MIPS Limits on Asteroidal Dust in the Pulsar Planetary System PSR B1257+1
• Why are pulsar planets rare?
• The Pulsar Planets: A Test Case of Terrestrial Planet Assembly
• An Observationally-Derived Kick Distribution for Neutron Stars in Binary Systems
• Merger of a White Dwarf-Neutron Star Binary to $10^{29}$ Carat Diamonds: Origin of the Pulsar Planets
• X-ray emission from the planet pulsar B1257+12
• The Vela and Geminga pulsars in the mid-infrared
• Neutron stars colliding with binary companions: formation of hypervelocity stars, pulsar planets, bumpy superluminous supernovae and Thorne-Żytkow objects
• Orbital solutions to the HD160691 (mu Arae) Doppler signal
• The Nature of Millisecond Pulsars with Helium White Dwarf Companions
• The population of black widow pulsars
• A search for planetary companions around 800 pulsars from the Jodrell Bank pulsar timing programme
• On the dynamics of resonant super-Earths in disks with turbulence driven by stochastic forcing
• A Search for Cold Dust around Neutron Stars
• Post-Newtonian direct and mixed orbital effects due to the oblateness of the central body
• Searching for substellar companions of young isolated neutron stars
• Constraints on a MOND effect for isolated aspherical systems in deep Newtonian regime from orbital motions
• The sdB pulsating star V391 Peg and its putative giant planet revisited after 13 years of time-series photometric data
• Constraining planet formation around 6$M_{\odot }$-8$M_{\odot }$ stars
• Phenomenological constraints on accretion of non-annihilating dark matter on the PSR B1257+12 pulsar from orbital dynamics of its planets
• Exoplanetary Geophysics -- An Emerging Discipline
• Mid- and Far-Infrared ISO Limits on Dust Disks around Millisecond Pulsars
• Neutron star mass in dark matter clumps
• Planet formation in post-common-envelope binaries
• Project Solaris, a Global Network of Autonomous Observatories: Design, Commissioning, and First Science Results
• Eclipse, transit and occultation geometry of planetary systems at exo-syzygy
• Finding rocky asteroids around white dwarfs by their periodic thermal emission
• New Dynamical State and Habitability of the HD 45364 Planetary System
• One of Everything: The Breakthrough Listen Exotica Catalog
• Millisecond pulsars phenomenology under the light of graph theory
• The architecture of the GJ876 planetary system. Masses and orbital coplanarity for planets b and c
• VLBI astrometry of two millisecond pulsars
• The systemic recoil velocity distribution and the scale height of field millisecond pulsar systems: Implications on neutron star retention fractions in star clusters
• Explanation of the exceptionally strong timing noise of PSR J0337+1715 by a circum-ternary planet and consequences for gravity tests
• Constraining the relative inclinations of the planets B and C of the millisecond pulsar PSR B1257+12
• Searching for Exotrojans in Pulsar Systems