Orbital Perturbations of Transiting Planets: A Possible Method to Measure Stellar Quadrupoles and to Detect Earth‐Mass Planets

2001/04/30 by Jordi Miralda‐Escudé, Jordi Miralda-Escude · 15 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/324279

submitted to ApJ

arxiv created 2001/11/12 · openalex publication_date 2002/01/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

The recent discovery of a planetary transit in the star HD 209458, and the subsequent highly precise observation of the transit light curve with Hubble Space Telescope , is encouraging to search for any phenomena that might induce small changes in the light curve. Here we consider the effect of the quadrupole moment of the parent star and of a possible second planet perturbing the orbit of the transiting planet. Both of these cause a precession of the orbital plane and of the periastron of the planet, which result in a long-term variation of the duration and the period of the transits. For a transiting planet at 0.05 AU, either a quadrupole moment similar to that of the Sun or the gravitational tug from an Earth-like planet on an orbit of semimajor axis ~0.2 AU and a relative inclination near the optimal 45° would cause a transit duration time derivative of ~1 s yr -1 .

Cited by

• Transits and secondary eclipses of HD 189733 with Spitzer
• Constraints on the Collisional Nature of the Dark Matter from Gravitational Lensing in the Cluster A2218
• TRANSIT TIMING VARIATIONS FOR INCLINED AND RETROGRADE EXOPLANETARY SYSTEMS
• The case for a close-in perturber to GJ 436 b
• What to Expect from Transiting Multiplanet Systems
• Measuring accurate transit parameters
• Detection of Period Variations in Extrasolar Transiting Planet OGLE-TR-111b
• A Closely-Packed System of Low-Mass, Low-Density Planets Transiting Kepler-11
• Periodic Flux Variability of Stars due to the Reflex Doppler Effect Induced by Planetary Companions
• VERY LOW DENSITY PLANETS AROUND KEPLER-51 REVEALED WITH TRANSIT TIMING VARIATIONS AND AN ANOMALY SIMILAR TO A PLANET-PLANET ECLIPSE EVENT
• Photometrically derived masses and radii of the planet and star in the TrES-2 system
• Periastron precession measurements in transiting extrasolar planetary systems at the level of general relativity
• The Ĝ Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies. IV. The Signatures and Information Content of Transiting Megastructures
• Kepler-36: A Pair of Planets with Neighboring Orbits and Dissimilar Densities
• Obliquity Tides on Hot Jupiters