Detecting companions to extrasolar planets using mutual events

Abstract

We investigate a new approach to the detection of companions to extrasolar planets beyond the transit method. We discuss the possibility of the existence of binary planets. We develop a method based on the imaging of a planet-companion as an unresolved system (but resolved from its parent star). It makes use of planet-companion mutual phenomena, namely mutual transits and mutual shadows. We show that companions can be detected and their radius measured down to lunar sizes.

6 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (9)

• HST Time-Series Photometry of the Transiting Planet of HD 209458
• The Interiors of Giant Planets: Models and Outstanding Questions
• Stability of Satellites Around Close-in Extrasolar Giant Planets
• Characterization of extrasolar terrestrial planets from diurnal photometric variability
• Simulation of a Space-Based Microlensing Survey for Terrestrial Extra-Solar Planets
• Transit Detectability of Ring Systems Around Extrasolar Giant Planets
• On the Feasibility of Detecting Satellites of Extrasolar Planets via Microlensing
• The detectability of extrasolar planet surroundings - I. Reflected-light photometry of unresolved rings
• Terrestrial Exoplanet Light Curves

Cited by in corpus (62)

• Defining and cataloging exoplanets: The exoplanet.eu database
• STARRY: Analytic Occultation Light Curves
• Transit timing effects due to an exomoon
• How to Characterize Habitable Worlds and Signs of Life
• Transit timing effects due to an exomoon II
• A Study of the Accuracy of Mass-Radius Relationships for Silicate-Rich and Ice-Rich Planets up to 100 Earth Masses
• Evidence for a Large Exomoon Orbiting Kepler-1625b
• Exomoon habitability constrained by illumination and tidal heating
• Formation, Habitability, and Detection of Extrasolar Moons
• On the detectability of habitable exomoons with Kepler-class photometry
• HEK VI: On the Dearth of Galilean Analogs in Kepler and the Exomoon Candidate Kepler-1625b I
• Characterizing Habitable Exo-Moons
• Outcomes and Duration of Tidal Evolution in a Star-Planet-Moon System
• The far future of exoplanet direct characterization
• Detecting extrasolar moons akin to solar system satellites with an orbital sampling effect
• The Center of Light: Spectroastrometric Detection of Exomoons
• Modeling the Infrared Spectrum of the Earth-Moon System: Implications for the Detection and Characterization of Earthlike Extrasolar Planets and their Moonlike Companions
• Solar System Physics for Exoplanet Research
• Planet-Planet Occultations in TRAPPIST-1 and Other Exoplanet Systems
• Detectability of extrasolar moons as gravitational microlenses
• How to determine an exomoon's sense of orbital motion
• CHEOPS performance for exomoons: The detectability of exomoons by using optimal decision algorithm
• Some inconvenient truths about biosignatures involving two chemical species on Earth-like exoplanets
• Revisiting the exomoon candidate signal around Kepler-1625b
• Detecting Exomoons Via Doppler Monitoring of Directly Imaged Exoplanets
• Effects of Mutual Transits by Extrasolar Planet-Companion Systems on Light Curves
• On the Detection of Exomoons Transiting Isolated Planetary-Mass Objects
• Predictable patterns in planetary transit timing variations and transit duration variations due to exomoons
• Orbital Stability of Exomoons and Submoons with Applications to Kepler 1625b-I
• Transiting Extrasolar Planet with a Companion: Effects of Orbital Eccentricity and Inclination
• Detecting Exomoons Around Self-luminous Giant Exoplanets Through Polarization
• Extrasolar Binary Planets II: Detectability by Transit Observations
• The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect for exomoons or binary planets
• Catalogue of exoplanets accessible in reflected starlight to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. A population study and prospects for phase-curve measurements
• Application of Orbital Stability and Tidal Migration Constraints for Exomoon Candidates
• On The Feasibility of Exomoon Detection Via Exoplanet Phase Curve Spectral Contrast
• Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE). X. Detectability of currently known exoplanets and synergies with future IR/O/UV reflected-starlight imaging missions
• Impact of Tides on the Potential for Exoplanets to Host Exomoons
• First Doppler Limits on Binary Planets and Exomoons in the HR 8799 System
• Analytic Light Curves in Reflected Light: Phase Curves, Occultations, and Non-Lambertian Scattering for Spherical Planets and Moons
• On the Detection of Extrasolar Moons and Rings
• Next Generation of Telescopes or Dynamics Required to Determine if Exo-Moons have Prograde or Retrograde Orbits
• The Exomoon Corridor for Multiple Moon Systems
• Exomoons in Systems with a Strong Perturber: Applications to $\alpha$ Cen AB
• Transit Light-curves for Exomoons: Analytical Formalism
• Exploring exomoon atmospheres with an idealized general circulation model
• Traces of exomoons in computed flux and polarization phase curves of starlight reflected by exoplanets
• Tidally Heated Exomoons around $\epsilon$ Eridani b: Observability and prospects for characterization
• Direct detectability of tidally heated exomoons by photometric orbital modulation
• The "Drake equation" of exomoons -- a cascade of formation, stability and detection
• Updated Studies on Exomoons in the HD 23079 System
• Hot Moons and Cool Stars
• Photobombing Earth 2.0: Diffraction Limit Related Contamination and Uncertainty in Habitable Planet Spectra
• Search for Super Earths by Timing of Transits with CoRoT
• Future Exoplanet Research: Science Questions and How to Address Them
• Exploring Exoplanet Dynamics with JWST: Tides, Rotation, Rings, and Moons
• Possibility for albedo estimation of exomoons: Why should we care about M dwarfs?
• Explicit relations and criteria for eclipses, transits and occultations
• The effect of post-Newtonian spin precessions on the evolution of exomoons' obliquity
• Special cases : moons, rings, comets, trojans
• Enhanced thermal radiation from a tidally heated exomoon with a single hot spot
• Fourier series for eclipses on exoplanet binaries