Title: Giant Outer Transiting Exoplanet Mass (GOT ‘EM) Survey. II. Discovery of a Failed Hot Jupiter on a 2.7 Year, Highly Eccentric Orbit
Authors: P. A. Dalba, S. R. Kane, Z. Li, M. G. Macdougall, L. J. Rosenthal, C. Cherubim, H. Isaacson, D. P. Thorngren, B. Fulton, A. W. Howard, E. A. Petigura, E. W. Schwieterman, D. O. Peluso, T. M. Esposito, F. Marchis, M. J. Payne
First Author’s Institution: Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA
Status: Accepted for publication in AJ, pre-print available on the arxiv
Astronomers have discovered a giant, eccentric exoplanet that orbits its star every every three Earth years. The best part is: we can measure both its radius and its mass!
Guided by Giants
Over the past few decades, astronomers have determined that giant planets are imperative to the formation and evolution of planetary systems. In particular, the migration of giant planets is a driving factor in organizing the architecture of exoplanetary systems (check out this astrobite to learn more about planetary migration).
Astronomers have established two mechanisms for the migration of giant planets: 1) disk-driven migration, and 2) high-eccentricity migration (HEM). While disk-driven migration is caused by torques from the protoplanetary disk, HEM arises when a giant planet exchanges orbital energy and angular momentum with one or more other objects in its system. Studying giant planets and their orbits helps us understand which mechanism led to the present-day planet architecture in a given system.
HEM theories are best tested in systems with hot Jupiters. In particular, HEM theorists are looking for hot Jupiters that seem to have formed at greater distances from their host stars and migrated inwards. They are also looking for proto- and failed hot Jupiters: objects that have not yet become hot Jupiters, or that will not become hot Jupiters even though they followed a similar evolutionary pathway.
Socrates et al. (2012) theorized that if HEM is the preferred mechanism for giant planet migration, then the Kepler mission would detect a population of giant planets with highly elliptical orbits (also known as highly eccentric orbits, with e>0.9).
Although radial velocity (RV) surveys have detected a handful of failed hot Jupiters, there is only one non-controversial exoplanet with both a highly eccentric orbit and a measured radius: HD 80606 b. However, eccentric, long-period giant planets with measured radii like this are exceedingly valuable, as they offer a window into their formation and migration. The authors of this paper therefore present the second discovery from the Giant Outer Transiting Exoplanet Mass (GOT ‘EM) survey: a new failed hot Jupiter from the Kepler sample: Kepler-1704 b.
Got ’em?
Although the discovery of Kepler-1704 b was unique and exciting, the authors first had to make sure that the decrease in brightness detected by Kepler was actually caused by a giant planet transit. This event could have instead been created by substellar or stellar objects, or various systematic signals.
In order to vet Kepler-1704 b, the GOT ‘EM survey collected RVs spanning a decade from Keck Observatory near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These observations did confirm that the two six-hour transits observed by the Kepler spacecraft were created by Kepler-1704 b (Figure 1). The 10-year baseline of RV measurements also confirmed the 988.88 day orbital period (nearly three years), placing Kepler 1704 b among the top five longest-period, non-controversial transiting exoplanets with precisely measured periods known to date.
A Wild One
Additionally, the authors determined that Kepler-1704 b has an eccentricity of 0.92, which brings it within 0.16 au of its host star, and then slingshots it out to 3.9 au (Figure 2). During this orbit, the temperature of Kepler-1704 b fluctuates by over 700 Kelvin!
Using mass and radius measurements, the authors were also able to infer that Kepler-1704 b likely has 150 Earth masses of heavy metals! This metallicity enrichment agrees with several accretion theories, and contributes additional data to the giant planet mass-metallicity correlation (Figure 3).
Untangling with Webb
Excitingly, astronomers may soon be able to characterize the atmosphere of the strange Kepler 1704-b. When the James Webb Space Telescope launches later this year, it will have a good shot at measuring a phase curve for Kepler-1704 b as it heats up while approaching its host star. This curve will reveal the planet’s rotation, and whether the atmosphere is “well mixed,” or has a “hot dayside” (Figure 4).
As Kepler-1704 b is a long-period failed hot Jupiter with both mass and radius measurements, it offers a unique opportunity to study how giant planet migration affects the formation and evolution of planetary architectures. Certainly this survey of exciting planets will lead to even more chances to shout, “Got ‘em!”
Astrobite edited by Alex Gough
Featured image credit: Dalba et al.
