Bibcode
Damasso, M.; Bonomo, A. S.; Astudillo-Defru, N.; Bonfils, X.; Malavolta, L.; Sozzetti, A.; Lopez, E.; Zeng, L.; Haywood, R. D.; Irwin, J. M.; Mortier, A.; Vanderburg, A.; Maldonado, J.; Lanza, A. F.; Affer, L.; Almenara, J.-M.; Benatti, S.; Biazzo, K.; Bignamini, A.; Borsa, F.; Bouchy, F.; Buchhave, L. A.; Cameron, A. C.; Carleo, I.; Charbonneau, D.; Claudi, R.; Cosentino, R.; Covino, E.; Delfosse, X.; Desidera, S.; Di Fabrizio, L.; Dressing, C.; Esposito, M.; Fares, R.; Figueira, P.; Fiorenzano, A. F. M.; Forveille, T.; Giacobbe, P.; González-Álvarez, E.; Gratton, R.; Harutyunyan, A.; Johnson, J. Asher; Latham, D. W.; Leto, G.; Lopez-Morales, M.; Lovis, C.; Maggio, A.; Mancini, L.; Masiero, S.; Mayor, M.; Micela, G.; Molinari, E.; Motalebi, F.; Murgas, F.; Nascimbeni, V.; Pagano, I.; Pepe, F.; Phillips, D. F.; Piotto, G.; Poretti, E.; Rainer, M.; Rice, K.; Santos, N. C.; Sasselov, D.; Scandariato, G.; Ségransan, D.; Smareglia, R.; Udry, S.; Watson, C.; Wünsche, A.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 615, id.A69, 14 pp.
Advertised on:
7
2018
Journal
Citations
37
Refereed citations
35
Description
Context. M-dwarf stars are promising targets for identifying and
characterizing potentially habitable planets. K2-3 is a nearby (45 pc),
early-type M dwarf hosting three small transiting planets, the outermost
of which orbits close to the inner edge of the stellar (optimistic)
habitable zone. The K2-3 system is well suited for follow-up
characterization studies aimed at determining accurate masses and bulk
densities of the three planets. Aims: Using a total of 329 radial
velocity measurements collected over 2.5 years with the HARPS-N and
HARPS spectrographs and a proper treatment of the stellar activity
signal, we aim to improve measurements of the masses and bulk densities
of the K2-3 planets. We use our results to investigate the physical
structure of the planets. Methods: We analysed radial velocity
time series extracted with two independent pipelines using Gaussian
process regression. We adopted a quasi-periodic kernel to model the
stellar magnetic activity jointly with the planetary signals. We used
Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the robustness of our mass
measurements of K2-3 c and K2-3 d, and to explore how additional
high-cadence radial velocity observations might improve these values.
Results: Even though the stellar activity component is the
strongest signal present in the radial velocity time series, we are able
to derive masses for both planet b (Mb = 6.6 ± 1.1
M⊕) and planet c (Mc =
3.1-1.2+1.3 M⊕). The Doppler
signal from K2-3 d remains undetected, likely because of its low
amplitude compared to the radial velocity signal induced by the stellar
activity. The closeness of the orbital period of K2-3 d to the stellar
rotation period could also make the detection of the planetary signal
complicated. Based on our ability to recover injected signals in
simulated data, we tentatively estimate the mass of K2-3 d to be
Md = 2.7-0.8+1.2 M⊕
M⊕. These mass measurements imply that the bulk
densities and therefore the interior structures of the three planets may
be similar. In particular, the planets may either have small H/He
envelopes (<1%) or massive water layers, with a water content ≥50%
of their total mass, on top of rocky cores. Placing further constraints
on the bulk densities of K2-3 c and d is difficult; in particular, we
would not have been able to detect the Doppler signal of K2-3 d even by
adopting a semester of intense, high-cadence radial velocity
observations with HARPS-N and HARPS.
Tables A.1-A.5 are only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr
(ftp://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/615/A69
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