In our solar system massive outer planets dominate in terms of both mass and angular momentum, but few such planets are among the more than 4000 currently confirmed exoplanets, and none of these have accurately determined densities. Here I examine the detection rate of single-transit events anticipated from the LSST deep drilling fields for such planets with periods of 2 - 25 years. Using conservative detection criteria, I anticipate 3-30 such detections over the 10-year period of the project, though distinguishing detections from false positives may prove challenging. However, these few detections are likely to be of great value in understanding the formation, dynamics, and diversity of exoplanet systems.
Planet Nine has been proposed to potentially be a black hole in the outer solar system. We investigate the accretion flares that would result from impacts of small Oort cloud objects, and find that the upcoming LSST observing program will be able to either rule out or confirm Planet Nine as a black hole within a year. We also find that LSST could rule out or confirm the existence of trapped planet-mass black holes out to the edge of the Oort cloud, indirectly probing the dark matter fraction in subsolar mass black holes and potentially improving upon current limits by orders of magnitude.
Making an inventory of the Solar System is one of the four pillars that the requirements for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) are built upon. The choice between same-filter nightly pairs or different-filter nightly pairs in the Wide-Fast-Deep (WFD) Survey will have a dramatic effect on the ability of the Moving Object Pipeline System (MOPS) to detect certain classes of Solar System objects; many of the possible filter pairings would result in significant ($\sim50\%$ or more) loss of Solar System object detections. In particular, outer Solar System populations can be significantly red…
We run simulations to determine the expected distribution of orbital elements of nearly isotropic comets (NICs) in the outer solar system, assuming that these comets originate in the Oort Cloud at thousands of AU and are perturbed into the planetary region by the Galactic tide. We show that the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) should detect and characterize the orbits of hundreds to thousands of NICs with perihelion distance outside 5 AU. Observing NICs in the outer solar system is our only way of directly detecting comets from the inner Oort Cloud, as these comets are dynamically exclud…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has been designed in order to satisfy several different scientific objectives that can be addressed by a ten-year synoptic sky survey. However, LSST will also provide a large amount of data that can then be exploited for additional science beyond its primary goals. We demonstrate the potential of using LSST data to search for transiting exoplanets, and in particular to find planets orbiting host stars that are members of stellar populations that have been less thoroughly probed by current exoplanet surveys. We find that existing algorithms can detect …
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will generate light curves for approximately 1 billion stars. Our previous work has demonstrated that, by the end of the LSST 10 year mission, large numbers of transiting exoplanetary systems could be recovered using the LSST "deep drilling" cadence. Here we extend our previous work to examine how the recoverability of transiting planets over a range of orbital periods and radii evolves per year of LSST operation. As specific example systems we consider hot Jupiters orbiting solar-type stars and hot Neptunes orbiting K-Dwarfs at distances from Earth o…
Previous work has demonstrated that the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has the capability to detect transiting planets around main sequence stars in relatively short ($<$ 20 days) periods and using standard algorithms for transit detection and period recoverability. In this paper, we demonstrate how an algorithm proposed in Tingley (2011) can be used for detecting transiting planets around white dwarfs with LSST. This application offsets the very short transit duration with the large change in magnitude caused by a transit of a white dwarf so that only a few points in transit are neede…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will photometrically monitor approximately 1 billion stars for ten years. The resulting light curves can be used to detect transiting exoplanets. In particular, as demonstrated by Lund et al. (2015), LSST will probe stellar populations currently undersampled in most exoplanet transit surveys, including out to extragalactic distances. In this paper we test the efficiency of the box-fitting least-squares (BLS) algorithm for accurately recovering the periods of transiting exoplanets using simulated LSST data. We model planets with a range of radii orbiti…
White dwarfs are one of the few types of stellar objects for which we know almost nothing about the possible existence of companion planets. Recent evidence for metal contaminated atmospheres, circumstellar debris disks and transiting planetary debris all indicate that planets may be likely. However, white dwarf transit surveys are challenging due to the intrinsic faintness of such objects, the short timescale of the transits and the low transit probabilities due to their compact radii. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) offers a remedy to these problems as a deep, half-sky survey with…
A foundational goal of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is to map the Solar System small body populations that provide key windows into understanding of its formation and evolution. This is especially true of the populations of the Outer Solar System -- objects at the orbit of Neptune $r > 30$AU and beyond. In this whitepaper, we propose a minimal change to the LSST cadence that can greatly enhance LSST's ability to discover faint distant Solar System objects across the entire wide-fast-deep (WFD) survey area. Specifically, we propose that the WFD cadence be constrained so as to deli…
Two planetary mass objects in the far outer Solar System --- collectively referred to here as Planet X --- have recently been hypothesized to explain the orbital distribution of distant Kuiper Belt Objects. Neither planet is thought to be exceptionally faint, but the sky locations of these putative planets are poorly constrained. Therefore, a wide area survey is needed to detect these possible planets. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will carry out an unbiased, large area (around 18,000 deg$^2$), deep (limiting magnitude of individual frames of 24.5) survey (the "wide-fast-deep" sur…
Predictions of Transiting Exoplanet Confirmations from Rubin LSST Surveys
School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University（亚利桑那州立大学地球与太空探索学院）；Penn State University（宾夕法尼亚州立大学）；Universidad Andres Bello（安德烈斯贝略大学）；Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México（墨西哥国立自治大学）；University of Belgrade（贝尔格莱德大学）
We show that an equal-mass, temporary binary companion to the Sun in the solar birth cluster at a separation of $\sim 10^3 \; \mathrm{\; AU}$ would have increased the likelihood of forming the observed population of outer Oort cloud objects and of capturing Planet Nine. In particular, the discovery of a captured origin for Planet Nine would favor our binary model by an order of magnitude relative to a lone stellar history. Our model predicts an overabundance of dwarf planets, discoverable by LSST, with similar orbits to Planet Nine, which would result from capture by the stellar binary.
An LSST-like survey of the Galactic plane (deep images every 3-4 days) could probe the Galactic distribution of planets by two distinct methods: gravitational microlensing of planets beyond the snow line and transits by planets very close to their hosts. The survey would identify over 250 disk-lens/disk-source microlensing events per year that peak at r<19, including 10% reaching the high magnification A>100 that makes them especially sensitive to planets. Intensive followup of these events would be required to find planets, similar to what is done presently for Galactic bulge microlensing. Th…
Existing and planned optical telescopes and surveys can detect artificially-illuminated objects comparable in total brightness to a major terrestrial city out to the outskirts of the Solar System. Orbital parameters of Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) are routinely measured to exquisite precisions of <10^{-3}. Here we propose to measure the variation of the observed flux F from such objects as a function of their changing orbital distances D. Sunlight-illuminated objects will show a logarithmic slope alpha=(dlogF/dlog D)=-4 whereas artificially-illuminated objects should exhibit alpha=-2. Planned su…
We present results of direct imaging observations for HAT-P-7 taken with the Subaru HiCIAO and the Calar Alto AstraLux. Since the close-in transiting planet HAT-P-7b was reported to have a highly tilted orbit, massive bodies such as giant planets, brown dwarfs, or a binary star are expected to exist in the outer region of this system. We show that there are indeed two candidates for distant faint stellar companions around HAT-P-7. We discuss possible roles played by such companions on the orbital evolution of HAT-P-7b. We conclude that as there is a third body in the system as reported by Winn…
The outer architectures of Kepler's compact systems of multiple transiting planets remain poorly constrained and few of these systems have lower bounds on the orbital distance of any massive outer planets. We infer a minimum orbital distance and upper limits on the inclination of a hypothetical Jovian-mass planet orbiting exterior to the six transiting planets at Kepler-11. Our constraints are derived from dynamical models together with observations provided by the Kepler mission. Firstly, the lack of transit timing variations (TTV) in the outermost transiting planet Kepler-11 g imply that the…
We present spectroscopic measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect for the planet b of Kepler-9 multi-transiting planet system. The resulting sky-projected spin-orbit angle is $λ=-13^{\circ} \pm 16^{\circ}$, which favors an aligned system and strongly disfavors highly misaligned, polar, and retrograde orbits. Including Kepler-9, there are now a total of 4 Rossiter-McLaughlin effect measurements for multiplanet systems, all of which are consistent with spin-orbit alignment.
Although the architectures of compact multiple-planet systems are well-characterized, there has been little examination of their "outer edges", or the locations of their outermost planets. Here we present evidence that the observed high-multiplicity Kepler systems truncate at smaller orbital periods than can be explained by geometric and detection biases alone. To show this, we considered the existence of hypothetical planets orbiting beyond the observed transiting planets with properties dictated by the "peas-in-a-pod" patterns of intra-system radius and period ratio uniformity. We evaluated …
We report the discovery and initial characterization of Qatar-2b, a hot Jupiter transiting a V = 13.3 mag K dwarf in a circular orbit with a short period, P_ b = 1.34 days. The mass and radius of Qatar-2b are M_p = 2.49 M_j and R_p = 1.14 R_j, respectively. Radial-velocity monitoring of Qatar-2 over a span of 153 days revealed the presence of a second companion in an outer orbit. The Systemic Console yielded plausible orbits for the outer companion, with periods on the order of a year and a companion mass of at least several M_j. Thus Qatar-2 joins the short but growing list of systems with a …
We consider the possibility of detecting and tracking the hypothesized Planet 9 or other unknown planetary-mass distant solar system members, generically called Planet X, with a combination of CMB and optical imaging surveys. Planets are detectable via thermal emission in CMB surveys and via reflected sunlight in optical surveys. Since the flux from reflected light falls off faster with distance, the signal-to-noise of planetary observations with optical surveys falls off faster than for CMB surveys. A promising approach to detecting new solar system planets with future surveys such as the Sim…
We report on the discovery of a planetary system with a close-in transiting hot Jupiter on a near circular orbit and a massive outer planet on a highly eccentric orbit. The inner planet, HAT-P-13b, transits the bright V=10.622 G4 dwarf star GSC 3416-00543 every P = 2.916260 \pm 0.000010 days, with transit epoch Tc = 2454779.92979 \pm 0.00038 (BJD) and duration 0.1345 \pm 0.0017 d. The outer planet, HAT-P-13c orbits the star with P2 = 428.5 \pm 3.0 days and nominal transit center (assuming zero impact parameter) of T2c = 2454870.4 \pm 1.8 (BJD) or time of periastron passage T2,peri= 2454890.05 …
K2-19 (EPIC201505350) is an interesting planetary system in which two transiting planets with radii ~ 7 $R_{Earth}$ (inner planet b) and ~ 4 $R_{Earth}$ (outer planet c) have orbits that are nearly in a 3:2 mean-motion resonance. Here, we present results of ground-based follow-up observations for the K2-19 planetary system. We have performed high-dispersion spectroscopy and high-contrast adaptive-optics imaging of the host star with the HDS and HiCIAO on the Subaru 8.2m telescope. We find that the host star is relatively old (>8 Gyr) late G-type star ($T_{eff}$ ~ 5350 K, $M_s$ ~ 0.9 $M_{Sun}$,…
The hundreds of multiple planetary systems discovered by the \textit{Kepler} mission are typically observed to reside in close-in ($\lesssim0.5$ AU), low-eccentricity, and low-inclination orbits. We run N-body experiments to study the effect that unstable outer ($\gtrsim1$ AU) giant planets, whose end orbital configurations resemble those in the Radial Velocity population, have on these close-in multiple super-Earth systems. Our experiments show that the giant planets greatly reduce the multiplicity of the inner super-Earths and the surviving population can have large eccentricities ($e\gtrsim…
This paper considers whether the population of known transiting exoplanets provides evidence for additional outer planets on inclined orbits, due to the perturbing effect of such planets on the orbits of inner planets. As such, we develop a semi-analytical method for calculating the probability that two mutually inclined planets are observed to transit. We subsequently derive a simplified analytical form to describe how the mutual inclination between two planets evolves due to secular interactions with a wide orbit inclined planet and use this to determine the mean probability that the two inn…
KOI-227, KOI-319 and KOI-884 are identified here as (at least) two planet systems. For KOI-319 and KOI-884, the observed Transit Timing Variations (TTVs) of the inner transiting planet are used to detect an outer non-transiting planet. The outer planet in KOI-884 is 2.6 Jupiter masses and has the orbital period just narrow of the 3:1 resonance with the inner planet (orbital period ratio 2.93). The distribution of parameters inferred from KOI-319.01's TTVs is bimodal with either a 1.6 Neptune-mass (M_N) planet wide of the 5:3 resonance (period 80.1 d) or a 1 Saturn-mass planet wide of the 7:3 r…
A historical problem for indirect exoplanet detection has been contending with the intrinsic variability of the host star. If the variability is periodic, it can easily mimic various exoplanet signatures, such as radial velocity variations that originate with the stellar surface rather than the presence of a planet. Here we present an update for the HD~99492 planetary system, using new radial velocity and photometric measurements from the Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS). Our extended time series and subsequent analyses of the Ca II H\&K emission lines show that the h…
Discovery and Characterization of the TOI-4468 Planetary System: A Transiting Hot Jupiter With a Lone Nearby Outer Companion
University of Wisconsin–Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（NASA戈达德太空飞行中心）；Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian（哈佛与史密森尼天体物理中心）；Michigan State University（密歇根州立大学）；Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam（阿姆斯特丹大学安东·潘内科克天文学研究所）；ASTRON, Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy（荷兰射电天文研究所ASTRON）；Centre for Astrophysics, University of Southern Queensland（南昆士兰大学天体物理学中心）；Astrophysics & Space Institute, Schmid（施密德天体物理学与空间研究所）
Observing a 542-day transiting giant with large TTVs: The 2025 transit of HIP 41378 f and new constraints on the outer system
Università degli Studi di Padova（帕多瓦大学）；INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova（意大利国家天体物理研究所帕多瓦天文台）；Aix Marseille Université（艾克斯-马赛大学）；Université Grenoble Alpes（格勒诺布尔阿尔卑斯大学）；Université de Montréal（蒙特利尔大学）；Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx)（特罗蒂系外行星研究学院）；Center for Astrophysics（天体物理中心）
Of the nine confirmed transiting circumbinary planet systems, only Kepler-47 is known to contain more than one planet. Kepler-47 b (the "inner planet") has an orbital period of 49.5 days and a radius of about $3\,R_{\oplus}$. Kepler-47 c (the "outer planet") has an orbital period of 303.2 days and a radius of about $4.7\,R_{\oplus}$. Here we report the discovery of a third planet, Kepler-47 d (the "middle planet"), which has an orbital period of 187.4 days and a radius of about $7\,R_{\oplus}$. The presence of the middle planet allows us to place much better constraints on the masses of all th…
Despite the severe bias of the transit method of exoplanet discovery toward short orbital periods, a modest sample of transiting exoplanets with orbital periods greater than 100 days is known. Long-term radial velocity (RV) surveys are pivotal to confirming these signals and generating a set of planetary masses and densities for planets receiving moderate to low irradiation from their host stars. Here, we conduct RV observations of Kepler-1514 from the Keck I telescope using the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer. From these data, we measure the mass of the statistically validated giant ($1.…
Exploring the Outer Solar System with Solar Sailing Smallsats on Fast-Transit Trajectories and In-Flight Autonomous Assembly of Advanced Science Payloads
Orbital dynamics provide valuable insights into the evolution and diversity of exoplanetary systems. Currently, only one hot Jupiter, WASP-12b, is confirmed to have a decaying orbit. Another, WASP-4b, exhibits hints of a changing orbital period that could be caused by orbital decay, apsidal precession, or the acceleration of the system towards the Earth. We have analyzed all data sectors from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite together with all radial velocity (RV) and transit data in the literature to characterize WASP-4b's orbit. Our analysis shows that the full RV data set is cons…
Giant Outer Transiting Exoplanet Mass (GOT 'EM) Survey: III. Recovery and Confirmation of a Temperate, Mildly Eccentric, Single-Transit Jupiter Orbiting TOI-2010
If the two planets in the HAT-P-13 system are coplanar, the orbital states provide a probe of the internal planetary structure. Previous analyses of radial velocity and transit timing data of the system suggested that the observational constraints on the orbital states were rather small. We reanalyze the available data, treating the jitter as an unknown MCMC parameter, and find that a wide range of jitter values are plausible, hence the system parameters are less well constrained than previously suggested. For slightly increased levels of jitter ($\sim 4.5\,m\,s^{-1}$) the eccentricity of the …
Radial velocity (RV) surveys have discovered giant exoplanets on au-scale orbits with a broad distribution of eccentricities. Those with the most eccentric orbits are valuable laboratories for testing theories of high eccentricity migration. However, few such exoplanets transit their host stars thus removing the ability to apply constraints on formation from their bulk internal compositions. We report the discovery of Kepler-1704 b, a transiting 4.15 $M_{\rm J}$ giant planet on a 988.88 day orbit with the extreme eccentricity of $0.921^{+0.010}_{-0.015}$. Our decade-long RV baseline from the K…
We report the first discovery of a multi-planetary system by the HATSouth network, HATS-59b,c, a planetary system with an inner transiting hot Jupiter and an outer cold massive giant planet, which was detected via radial velocity. The inner transiting planet, HATS-59b, is on an eccentric orbit with $e = 0.129\pm0.049$, orbiting a $V=13.951\pm0.030$ mag solar-like star ($M_* = 1.038\pm0.039 M_{\odot}$, and $R_* = 1.036\pm0.067 R_{\odot}$) with a period of $5.416077\pm0.000017$ days. The outer companion, HATS-59c is on a circular orbit with $ m \sin i = 12.8\pm1.1 M_\mathrm{J}$, and a period of …
Approximately half of the planets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are in systems where just a single planet transits its host star, and the remaining planets are observed to be in multi-planet systems. Recent analyses have reported a dichotomy in the eccentricity distribution displayed by systems where a single planet transits compared with that displayed by the multi-planet systems. Using $N$-body simulations, we examine the hypothesis that this dichotomy has arisen because inner systems of super-Earths are frequently accompanied by outer systems of giant planets that can become dynamical…
We study how close-in systems such as those detected by Kepler are affected by the dynamics of bodies in the outer system. We consider two scenarios: outer systems of giant planets potentially unstable to planet--planet scattering, and wide binaries that may be capable of driving Kozai or other secular variations of outer planets' eccentricities. Dynamical excitation of planets in the outer system reduces the multiplicity of Kepler-detectable planets in the inner system in $\sim20-25\%$ of our systems. Accounting for the occurrence rates of wide-orbit planets and binary stars, $\approx18\%$ of…
We explore the effects of an undetected outer giant planet on the dynamics, observability, and stability of Systems with Tightly-packed Inner Planets (STIPs). We use direct numerical simulations along with secular theory and synthetic secular frequency spectra to analyze how analogues of Kepler-11 and Kepler-90 behave in the presence of a nearly co-planar, Jupiter-like outer perturber with semi-major axes between 1 and 5.2 au. Most locations of the outer perturber do not affect the evolution of the inner planetary systems, apart from altering precession frequencies. However, there are location…
We report the discovery by the HATNet survey of three new transiting extrasolar planets orbiting moderately bright (V=13.2, 12.8 and 11.9) stars. The planets have orbital periods of 4.3012, 3.1290, and 4.4631 days, masses of 0.39, 0.89, and 0.49 Mjup, and radii of 1.28, 1.43, and 1.28 Rjup. The stellar hosts have masses of 0.94, 1.26, and 1.28 Msun. Each system shows significant systematic variations in its residual radial velocities indicating the possible presence of additional components. Based on its Bayesian evidence, the preferred model for HAT-P-44 consists of two planets, including the…
We evaluate the dynamical stability of a selection of outer solar system objects in the presence of the proposed new Solar System member Planet Nine. We use a Monte Carlo suite of numerical N-body integrations to construct a variety of orbital elements of the new planet and evaluate the dynamical stability of eight Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in the presence of Planet Nine. These simulations show that some combinations of orbital elements ($a,e$) result in Planet Nine acting as a stabilizing influence on the TNOs, which can otherwise be destabilized by interactions with Neptune. These simul…
Mutually misaligned circumbinary planets may form in a warped or broken gas disc or from later planet-planet interactions. With numerical simulations and analytic estimates we explore the dynamics of two circumbinary planets with a large mutual inclination. A coplanar inner planet causes prograde apsidal precession of the binary and the stationary inclination for the outer planet is higher for larger outer planet orbital radius. In this case a coplanar outer planet always remains coplanar. On the other hand, a polar inner planet causes retrograde apsidal precession of the binary orbit and the …
We report the discovery of an eccentric hot Neptune and a non-transiting outer planet around TOI-1272. We identified the eccentricity of the inner planet, with an orbital period of 3.3 d and $R_{\rm p,b} = 4.1 \pm 0.2$ $R_\oplus$, based on a mismatch between the observed transit duration and the expected duration for a circular orbit. Using ground-based radial velocity measurements from the HIRES instrument at the Keck Observatory, we measured the mass of TOI-1272b to be $M_{\rm p,b} = 25 \pm 2$ $M_\oplus$. We also confirmed a high eccentricity of $e_b = 0.34 \pm 0.06$, placing TOI-1272b among…
