Discovering and characterizing exoplanets at the outer edge of the transit method's sensitivity has proven challenging owing to geometric biases and the practical difficulties associated with acquiring long observational baselines. Nonetheless, a sample of giant exoplanets on orbits longer than 100 days has been identified by transit hunting missions. We present long-term Doppler spectroscopy for 11 such systems with observation baselines spanning a few years to a decade. We model these radial velocity observations jointly with transit photometry to provide initial characterizations of these objects and the systems in which they exist. Specifically, we make new precise mass measurements for four long-period giant exoplanets (Kepler-111 c, Kepler-553 c, Kepler-849 b, and PH-2 b), we place new upper limits on mass for four others (Kepler-421 b, KOI-1431.01, Kepler-1513 b, and Kepler-952 b), and we show that several confirmed planets are in fact not planetary at all. We present these findings to complement similar efforts focused on closer-in short-period giant planets, and with the hope of inspiring future dedicated studies of cool giant exoplanets.
Giant Outer Transiting Exoplanet Mass (GOT 'EM) Survey. IV. Long-term Doppler Spectroscopy for 11 Stars Thought to Host Cool Giant Exoplanets
- Creators
- Dalba, Paul A.
- Kane, Stephen R.
- Isaacson, Howard
- Fulton, Benjamin
- Howard, Andrew W.1
- Schwieterman, Edward W.
- Thorngren, Daniel P.
- Fortney, Jonathan
- Vowell, Noah
- Beard, Corey
- Blunt, Sarah
- Brinkman, Casey L.
- Chontos, Ashley
- Dai, Fei
- Giacalone, Steven
- Hill, Michelle L.
- Kosiarek, Molly
- Lubin, Jack
- Mayo, Andrew W.
- Močnik, Teo
- Akana Murphy, Joseph M.
- Petigura, Erik A.
- Rice, Malena
- Rubenzahl, Ryan A.
- Van Zandt, Judah
- Weiss, Lauren M.
- Dragomir, Diana
- Kipping, David
- Payne, Matthew J.
- Roy, Arpita
- Teachey, Alex
- Villanueva, Steven, Jr.
Abstract
Copyright and License
© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Acknowledgement
The authors recognize the cultural significance and sanctity that the summit of Maunakea has within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are deeply grateful to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. We acknowledge the impact of our presence there and the ongoing efforts to preserve this special place.
We thank the anonymous referee for comments that improved the quality of this research. We thank Jason Eastman for helpful feedback on the usage of EXOFASTv2 and Joseph Rodriguez for helpful discussions related to several of these systems. We thank Ken and Gloria Levy, who supported the construction of the Levy Spectrometer on the Automated Planet Finder. We thank the University of California and Google for supporting Lick Observatory and the UCO staff for their dedicated work scheduling and operating the telescopes of Lick Observatory.
P.D. acknowledges support by a 51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Heising-Simons Foundation and by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship under award AST-1903811. M.P. gratefully acknowledges NASA award 80NSSC22M0024. J.M.A.M. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant No. DGE-1842400 and from NASA'S Interdisciplinary Consortia for Astrobiology Research (NNH19ZDA001N-ICAR) under award No. 19-ICAR19_2-0041.
Based in part on observations at Kitt Peak National Observatory, NSF's NOIRLab (Prop. ID 2021B-0220; PI: P. Dalba), managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The authors are honored to be permitted to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du'ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O'odham.
Some of the Keck telescope time used herein was granted by NOAO, through the Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP). TSIP was funded by NSF.
This research has made use of the NASA Exoplanet Archive, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program. This paper includes data collected by the Kepler mission and obtained from the MAST data archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Funding for the Kepler mission is provided by the NASA Science Mission Directorate. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. This research has made use of the Exoplanet Follow-up Observation Program (ExoFOP; NExScI 2022) website, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program.
Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and NASA. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. Some of the Keck data were obtained under PI data awards 2013A and 2013B (M. Payne).
Finally, P.D. wishes to thank the astronomy community for many years of exciting discoveries and for allowing him the privilege of discovering worlds beyond Earth.
Facilities
Keck:I (HIRES) - KECK I Telescope, APF (Levy) - , Kepler - The Kepler Mission, TESS -
Software References
astropy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2013, 2018), EXOFASTv2 (Eastman et al. 2013, 2019; Eastman 2017), lightkurve (Lightkurve Collaboration et al. 2018), RadVel (Fulton et al. 2018), ReaMatch (Kolbl et al. 2015), SpecMatch (Petigura 2015; Petigura et al. 2017), keplerspline (Vanderburg et al. 2016)
Contributions
Authors P.A.D. through N.V. contributed to the formulation, execution, analysis, and/or management of the GOT 'EM survey. Authors C.B. through L.M.W. each took at least 10 of the Keck-HIRES observations published for the first time in this work. Authors D.D. through S.V. Jr assisted in winning the telescope time to support this work.
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Additional details
- ISSN
- 1538-4365
- University of California, Berkeley
- Google (United States)
- Heising-Simons Foundation
- 51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellowship
- National Science Foundation
- NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellowship AST-1903811
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC22M0024
- National Science Foundation
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship DGE-1842400
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NNH19ZDA001N-ICAR
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 19-ICAR19_2-0041
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NAS 5-26555
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- Caltech groups
- Astronomy Department, Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)