The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler (HEK). II. Analysis of seven viable satellite_hosting planet candidates

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler (HEK). II. Analysis of seven viable satellite_hosting planet candidates

AU - Kipping, D. M.

AU - Hartman, J.

AU - Buchhave, Lars A.

AU - Schmitt, A. R.

AU - Bakos, G. Á.

AU - Nesvorný, D.

PY - 2013/6/20

Y1 - 2013/6/20

N2 - From the list of 2321 transiting planet candidates announced by the Kepler Mission, we select seven targets with favorable properties for the capacity to dynamically maintain an exomoon and present a detectable signal. These seven candidates were identified through our automatic target selection (TSA) algorithm and target selection prioritization (TSP) filtering, whereby we excluded systems exhibiting significant time-correlated noise and focused on those with a single transiting planet candidate of radius less than 6 R ⊕. We find no compelling evidence for an exomoon around any of the seven Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs) but constrain the satellite-to-planet mass ratios for each. For four of the seven KOIs, we estimate a 95% upper quantile of MS /MP < 0.04, which given the radii of the candidates, likely probes down to sub-Earth masses. We also derive precise transit times and durations for each candidate and find no evidence for dynamical variations in any of the KOIs. With just a few systems analyzed thus far in the ongoing "Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler" (HEK) project, projections on would be premature, but a high frequency of large moons around Super-Earths/Mini-Neptunes would appear to be incommensurable with our results so far.

AB - From the list of 2321 transiting planet candidates announced by the Kepler Mission, we select seven targets with favorable properties for the capacity to dynamically maintain an exomoon and present a detectable signal. These seven candidates were identified through our automatic target selection (TSA) algorithm and target selection prioritization (TSP) filtering, whereby we excluded systems exhibiting significant time-correlated noise and focused on those with a single transiting planet candidate of radius less than 6 R ⊕. We find no compelling evidence for an exomoon around any of the seven Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs) but constrain the satellite-to-planet mass ratios for each. For four of the seven KOIs, we estimate a 95% upper quantile of MS /MP < 0.04, which given the radii of the candidates, likely probes down to sub-Earth masses. We also derive precise transit times and durations for each candidate and find no evidence for dynamical variations in any of the KOIs. With just a few systems analyzed thus far in the ongoing "Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler" (HEK) project, projections on would be premature, but a high frequency of large moons around Super-Earths/Mini-Neptunes would appear to be incommensurable with our results so far.

U2 - 10.1088/0004-637X/770/2/101

DO - 10.1088/0004-637X/770/2/101

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0004-637X

VL - 770

JO - Astrophysical Journal

JF - Astrophysical Journal

IS - 2

M1 - 101

ER -