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No circumbinary planets transiting the tightest Kepler binaries - a possible fingerprint of a third star

Martin, David V. ; Mazeh, Tsevi ; Fabrycky, Daniel C.

In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2015, vol. 453, no. 4, p. 3554-3567

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    Titre
    • No circumbinary planets transiting the tightest Kepler binaries - a possible fingerprint of a third star
    Auteur
    • Martin, David V.. Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genève, 51 chemin des Maillettes, CH-1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
    • Mazeh, Tsevi. School of Physics and Astronomy, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
    • Fabrycky, Daniel C.. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
    Type de document
    • Postprint
    Langue
    • Anglais
    Publié dans
    • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2015, vol. 453, no. 4, p. 3554-3567. Oxford University Press
    Autre version électronique
    Identifiant OAI-PMH
    • oai:doc.rero.ch:299170
    Summary
    The Kepler mission has yielded the discovery of eight circumbinary systems, all found around eclipsing binaries with periods greater than 7d. This is longer than the typical eclipsing binary period found by Kepler, and hence there is a dearth of planets around the closest binaries. In this paper, we suggest how this dearth may be explained by the presence of a distant stellar tertiary companion, which shrunk the inner binary orbit by the process of Kozai cycles and tidal friction, a mechanism that has been implicated for producing most binaries with periods below 7d. We show that the geometry and orbital dynamics of these evolving triple star systems are highly restrictive for a circumbinary planet, which is subject itself to Kozai modulation, on one hand, and can shield the two inner stars from their Kozai cycle and subsequent shrinking, on the other hand. Only small planets on wide and inclined orbits may form, survive and allow for the inner binary shrinkage. Those are difficult to detect