Three New Eclipsing White-dwarf - M-dwarf Binaries Discovered in a Search for Transiting Planets Around M-dwarfs
| Autor: | Khanh Bui, Richard Dekany, Peter Nugent, Eran O. Ofek, Reed Riddle, Tim Lister, Joshua S. Bloom, Robert M. Quimby, Nicholas M. Law, Jeffrey M. Silverman, Lynne A. Hillenbrand, Shriharsh P. Tendulkar, Benjamin J. Fulton, Jack T.C. Davis, Adam L. Kraus, S. Bradley Cenko, Mansi M. Kasliwal, H. K. Das, Rachel Street, Suresh Sivanandam, Avi Shporer, Alexei V. Filippenko, Anamparambu N. Ramaprakash, Shrinivas R. Kulkarni, Dovi Poznanski, Mahesh P. Burse, Christoph Baranec |
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| Rok vydání: | 2011 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
010308 nuclear & particles physics White dwarf FOS: Physical sciences Astronomy and Astrophysics Solar radius Astrophysics Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics Light curve 01 natural sciences Radial velocity Photometry (astronomy) Laser guide star Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Space and Planetary Science Planet 0103 physical sciences Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 010303 astronomy & astrophysics Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) Eclipse |
| DOI: | 10.48550/arxiv.1112.1701 |
| Popis: | We present three new eclipsing white-dwarf / M-dwarf binary systems discovered during a search for transiting planets around M-dwarfs. Unlike most known eclipsing systems of this type, the optical and infrared emission is dominated by the M-dwarf components, and the systems have optical colors and discovery light curves consistent with being Jupiter-radius transiting planets around early M-dwarfs. We detail the PTF/M-dwarf transiting planet survey, part of the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). We present a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-based box-least-squares search for transits that runs approximately 8X faster than similar algorithms implemented on general purpose systems. For the discovered systems, we decompose low-resolution spectra of the systems into white-dwarf and M-dwarf components, and use radial velocity measurements and cooling models to estimate masses and radii for the white dwarfs. The systems are compact, with periods between 0.35 and 0.45 days and semimajor axes of approximately 2 solar radii (0.01 AU). We use the Robo-AO laser guide star adaptive optics system to tentatively identify one of the objects as a triple system. We also use high-cadence photometry to put an upper limit on the white dwarf radius of 0.025 solar radii (95% confidence) in one of the systems. We estimate that 0.08% (90% confidence) of M-dwarfs are in these short-period, post-common-envelope white-dwarf / M-dwarf binaries where the optical light is dominated by the M-dwarf. Similar eclipsing binary systems can have arbitrarily small eclipse depths in red bands and generate plausible small-planet-transit light curves. As such, these systems are a source of false positives for M-dwarf transiting planet searches. We present several ways to rapidly distinguish these binaries from transiting planet systems. Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, submitted to ApJ |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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