Diffuser-Assisted Infrared Transit Photometry for Four Dynamically Kepler Systems
Abstract
We present ground-based infrared transit observations for four dynamically interacting Kepler planets, including Kepler-29b, Kepler-36c, KOI-1783.01, and Kepler-177c, obtained using the Wide-field Infrared Camera on the Hale 200" telescope at Palomar Observatory. By utilizing an engineered diffuser and custom guiding software, we mitigate time-correlated telluric and instrumental noise sources in these observations. We achieve an infrared photometric precision comparable to or better than that of space-based observatories such as the Spitzer Space Telescope, and detect transits with greater than 5σ significance for all planets aside from Kepler-36c. For Kepler-177c (J=13.9) our measurement uncertainties are only 1.2× the photon noise limit and 1.9 times better than the predicted photometric precision for Spitzer IRAC photometry of this same target. We find that a single transit observation obtained 4−5years after the end of the original \textit{Kepler} mission can reduce dynamical mass uncertainties by as much as a factor of three for these systems. Additionally, we combine our new observations of KOI-1783.01 with information from the literature to confirm the planetary nature of this system. We discuss the implications of our new mass and radius constraints in the context of known exoplanets with low incident fluxes, and we note that Kepler-177c may be a more massive analog to the currently known super-puffs given its core mass (4.2±0.8M⊕) and large gas-to-core ratio (2.5±0.2). Our demonstrated infrared photometric performance opens up new avenues for ground-based observations of transiting exoplanets previously thought to be restricted to space-based investigation.
Additional Information
The authors thank the entire Palomar Observatory staff for their tireless support of our work. We additionally acknowledge Jessie Christiansen for helpful discussions on KOI-1783, B. J. Fulton for assistance with the California Kepler Survey dataset, Erik Petigura for useful comments on time-correlated noise and joint RV-TTV modeling, Nicole Wallack for discussions on light curve fitting, and Gudmundur Stefansson for conversations regarding diffuser-assisted photometry at Palomar and other observatories. Support for this program was provided by NSF Career grant 1555095 and by NASA Origins grant NNH13ZDA001N-OSS. This work was partially supported by funding from the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, which is supported by the Pennsylvania State University, the Eberly College of Science, and the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium. 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. Facilities: Hale (WIRC, PHARO), Kepler, OHP:1.52m (SOPHIE), PO:1.5m (ROBO-AO), Keck:II (NIRC2), ADS, Exoplanet Archive Software: photutils (Bradley et al. 2016), numpy (van der Walt et al. 2011), astropy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2013, 2018), scipy (Jones et al. 2001), mat-plotlib (Hunter 2007), batman (Kreidberg 2015), em-cee (Foreman-Mackey et al. 2013), corner (Foreman-Mackey 2016), PyKE (Still & Barclay 2012), Aladin Lite (Bonnarel et al. 2000; Boch & Fernique 2014)Attached Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 97323
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190722-112021631
- NSF
- AST-1555095
- NASA
- NNH13ZDA001N-OSS
- Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds
- Pennsylvania State University
- Eberly College of Science
- Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium
- Created
-
2019-07-22Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2023-06-02Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- TAPIR, Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, Astronomy Department, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences