A SPITZER SEARCH FOR TRANSITS OF RADIAL VELOCITY DETECTED SUPER-EARTHS
Unlike hot Jupiters or other gas giants, super-Earths are expected to have a wide variety of compositions, ranging from terrestrial bodies like our own to more gaseous planets like Neptune. Observations of transiting systems, which allow us to directly measure planet masses and radii and constrain a...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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IOP Publishing
2015
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/94545 |
| _version_ | 1811096470446669824 |
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| author | Kammer, J. A. Knutson, Heather A. Howard, Andrew W. Laughlin, G. P. Deming, Drake Todorov, K. O. Desert, Jean-Michel Agol, Eric Burrows, Adam Fortney, Jonathan J. Showman, A. P. Lewis, Nikole |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Kammer, J. A. Knutson, Heather A. Howard, Andrew W. Laughlin, G. P. Deming, Drake Todorov, K. O. Desert, Jean-Michel Agol, Eric Burrows, Adam Fortney, Jonathan J. Showman, A. P. Lewis, Nikole |
| author_sort | Kammer, J. A. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Unlike hot Jupiters or other gas giants, super-Earths are expected to have a wide variety of compositions, ranging from terrestrial bodies like our own to more gaseous planets like Neptune. Observations of transiting systems, which allow us to directly measure planet masses and radii and constrain atmospheric properties, are key to understanding the compositional diversity of the planets in this mass range. Although Kepler has discovered hundreds of transiting super-Earth candidates over the past 4 yr, the majority of these planets orbit stars that are too far away and too faint to allow for detailed atmospheric characterization and reliable mass estimates. Ground-based transit surveys focus on much brighter stars, but most lack the sensitivity to detect planets in this size range. One way to get around the difficulty of finding these smaller planets in transit is to start by choosing targets that are already known to host super-Earth sized bodies detected using the radial velocity (RV) technique. Here we present results from a Spitzer program to observe six of the most favorable RV-detected super-Earth systems, including HD 1461, HD 7924, HD 156668, HIP 57274, and GJ 876. We find no evidence for transits in any of their 4.5 μm flux light curves, and place limits on the allowed transit depths and corresponding planet radii that rule out even the most dense and iron-rich compositions for these objects. We also observed HD 97658, but the observation window was based on a possible ground-based transit detection that was later ruled out; thus the window did not include the predicted time for the transit detection recently made by the Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars space telescope. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:44:11Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/94545 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:44:11Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/945452022-10-03T07:53:54Z A SPITZER SEARCH FOR TRANSITS OF RADIAL VELOCITY DETECTED SUPER-EARTHS Kammer, J. A. Knutson, Heather A. Howard, Andrew W. Laughlin, G. P. Deming, Drake Todorov, K. O. Desert, Jean-Michel Agol, Eric Burrows, Adam Fortney, Jonathan J. Showman, A. P. Lewis, Nikole Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Lewis, Nikole Unlike hot Jupiters or other gas giants, super-Earths are expected to have a wide variety of compositions, ranging from terrestrial bodies like our own to more gaseous planets like Neptune. Observations of transiting systems, which allow us to directly measure planet masses and radii and constrain atmospheric properties, are key to understanding the compositional diversity of the planets in this mass range. Although Kepler has discovered hundreds of transiting super-Earth candidates over the past 4 yr, the majority of these planets orbit stars that are too far away and too faint to allow for detailed atmospheric characterization and reliable mass estimates. Ground-based transit surveys focus on much brighter stars, but most lack the sensitivity to detect planets in this size range. One way to get around the difficulty of finding these smaller planets in transit is to start by choosing targets that are already known to host super-Earth sized bodies detected using the radial velocity (RV) technique. Here we present results from a Spitzer program to observe six of the most favorable RV-detected super-Earth systems, including HD 1461, HD 7924, HD 156668, HIP 57274, and GJ 876. We find no evidence for transits in any of their 4.5 μm flux light curves, and place limits on the allowed transit depths and corresponding planet radii that rule out even the most dense and iron-rich compositions for these objects. We also observed HD 97658, but the observation window was based on a possible ground-based transit detection that was later ruled out; thus the window did not include the predicted time for the transit detection recently made by the Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars space telescope. United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Sagan Fellowship) 2015-02-17T14:33:19Z 2015-02-17T14:33:19Z 2014-01 2013-10 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0004-637X 1538-4357 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/94545 Kammer, J. A., H. A. Knutson, A. W. Howard, G. P. Laughlin, D. Deming, K. O. Todorov, J.-M. Desert, et al. “A SPITZER SEARCH FOR TRANSITS OF RADIAL VELOCITY DETECTED SUPER-EARTHS.” The Astrophysical Journal 781, no. 2 (January 14, 2014): 103. © 2014 The American Astronomical Society en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/781/2/103 The Astrophysical Journal Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf IOP Publishing American Astronomical Society |
| spellingShingle | Kammer, J. A. Knutson, Heather A. Howard, Andrew W. Laughlin, G. P. Deming, Drake Todorov, K. O. Desert, Jean-Michel Agol, Eric Burrows, Adam Fortney, Jonathan J. Showman, A. P. Lewis, Nikole A SPITZER SEARCH FOR TRANSITS OF RADIAL VELOCITY DETECTED SUPER-EARTHS |
| title | A SPITZER SEARCH FOR TRANSITS OF RADIAL VELOCITY DETECTED SUPER-EARTHS |
| title_full | A SPITZER SEARCH FOR TRANSITS OF RADIAL VELOCITY DETECTED SUPER-EARTHS |
| title_fullStr | A SPITZER SEARCH FOR TRANSITS OF RADIAL VELOCITY DETECTED SUPER-EARTHS |
| title_full_unstemmed | A SPITZER SEARCH FOR TRANSITS OF RADIAL VELOCITY DETECTED SUPER-EARTHS |
| title_short | A SPITZER SEARCH FOR TRANSITS OF RADIAL VELOCITY DETECTED SUPER-EARTHS |
| title_sort | spitzer search for transits of radial velocity detected super earths |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/94545 |
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