A super-Earth and sub-Neptune transiting the late-type M dwarf LP 791-18
Name
Crossfield_2019_ApJL_883_L16.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
3.16 MB
Format
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Checksum (MD5)
89580c2511e5892936fecd65a1b0adbb
Author(s)
Crossfield, Ian J. M.
Matthews, Elisabeth
Halverson, Sam
Berardo, David
Mehrle, Nicholas
Huang, Chelsea
Burt, Jennifer
Seager, Sara
Ricker, George R.
Date Issued
September 2019
Journal
Astrophysical journal. Letters
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Citation
Crossfield, Ian J.M., et al., "A super-Earth and sub-Neptune transiting the late-type M dwarf LP 791-18." Astrophysical journal. Letters 883, 1 (September 2019): letter 16 doi 10.3847/2041-8213/AB3D30 ©2019 Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Planets occur most frequently around cool dwarfs, but only a handful of specific examples are known to orbit the latest-type M stars. Using TESS photometry, we report the discovery of two planets transiting the low-mass star called LP 791-18 (identified by TESS as TOI 736). This star has spectral type M6V, effective temperature 2960 K, and radius 0.17 R o, making it the third-coolest star known to host planets. The two planets straddle the radius gap seen for smaller exoplanets; they include a 1.1R ⊕ planet on a 0.95 day orbit and a 2.3R ⊕ planet on a 5 day orbit. Because the host star is small the decrease in light during these planets' transits is fairly large (0.4% and 1.7%). This has allowed us to detect both planets' transits from ground-based photometry, refining their radii and orbital ephemerides. In the future, radial velocity observations and transmission spectroscopy can both probe these planets' bulk interior and atmospheric compositions, and additional photometric monitoring would be sensitive to even smaller transiting planets. ©2019
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unported license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/AB3D30
