Juliette Becker

California Institute of Technology

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Fred C. Adams

University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

Andrew Vanderburg

University of Wisconsin–Madison

David W. Latham

Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian

D. W. Gerdes

University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

Tali Khain

University of Chicago

Samuel N. Quinn

Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian

Joseph E. Rodriguez

Michigan State University

Larissa Markwardt

University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

R. Vanderspek

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sara Seager

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cooperative Institutions

California Institute of Technology

114

Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian

Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Max Planck Society

University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

University of California, Berkeley

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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The Resonance Hopping Effect in the Neptune-planet Nine System

Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (2020)

Tali Khain Juliette Becker Fred C. Adams

The observed physical clustering of the orbits of small bodies in the distant Kuiper Belt (TNOs) has recently prompted the prediction of an additional planet in the outer solar system. Since the initial posing of the hypothesis, the effects of Planet Nine on the dynamics of the main cluster of TNOs—the objects anti-aligned with its orbit—have been well-studied. In particular, numerical simulations have revealed a fascinating phenomenon, referred to as "resonance hopping," in which these objects abruptly transition between different mean-motion commensurabilities with Planet Nine. In this work, we explore this effect in greater detail, with the goal of understanding what mechanism prompts the hopping events to occur. In the process, we elucidate the often underestimated role of Neptune scattering interactions, which leads to diffusion in the semimajor axes of these distant TNOs. In addition, we demonstrate that although some resonant interactions with Planet Nine do occur, the anti-aligned objects are able to survive without the resonances, confirming that the dynamics of the TNOs are predominantly driven by secular, rather than resonant, interactions with Planet Nine.

Neptune

Mean motion

Orbit (dynamics)

10.1088/1538-3873/abbd8a

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TTV constraints on additional planets in the WD 1856+534 system

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023)

Sarah Kubiak Andrew Vanderburg Juliette Becker B. L. Gary S. Rappaport

WD 1856+534 b (or WD 1856 b for short) is the first known transiting planet candidate around a white dwarf star. WD 1856 b is about the size of Jupiter, has a mass less than about 12 Jupiter masses, and orbits at a distance of about 2% of an astronomical unit. The formation and migration history of this object is still a mystery. Here, we present constraints on the presence of long-period companions (where we explored eccentricity, inclination, mass, and period for the possible companion) in the WD 1856+534 planetary system from Transit Timing Variations (TTVs). We show that existing transit observations can rule out planets with orbital periods less than about 500 days. With additional transit observations over the next decade, it will be possible to test whether WD 1856 also hosts additional long-period planets that could have perturbed WD 1856 b into its current close-in orbit.

Jupiter (rocket family)

Eccentricity (behavior)

Orbital period

Hot Jupiter

Orbit (dynamics)

10.1093/mnras/stad766

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Citations (3)

XV.Lieber das proömium zu Horatius zehnter satire des ersten buches

Philologus (1849)

Juliette Becker

10.1524/phil.1849.4.14.490

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Erratum: “TOI-2076 and TOI-1807: Two Young, Comoving Planetary Systems within 50 pc Identified by TESS that are Ideal Candidates for Further Follow Up” (2021, AJ, 162, 54)

The Astronomical Journal (2022)

Christina Hedges Alex Hughes George Zhou Trevor J. David Juliette Becker

10.3847/1538-3881/ac4477

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Oscillations of relative inclination angles in compact extrasolar planetary systems

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2015)

Juliette Becker Fred C. Adams

The Kepler Mission has detected dozens of compact planetary systems with more than four transiting planets. This sample provides a collection of close-packed planetary systems with relatively little spread in the inclination angles of the inferred orbits. A large fraction of the observational sample contains limited multiplicity, begging the question whether there is a true diversity of multi transiting systems, or if some systems merely possess high mutual inclinations, allowing them to appear as single-transiting systems in a transit-based survey. This paper begins an exploration of the effectiveness of dynamical mechanisms in exciting orbital inclination within exoplanetary systems of this class. For these tightly packed systems, we determine that the orbital inclination angles are not spread out appreciably through self-excitation. In contrast, the two Kepler multi-planet systems with additional non-transiting planets are susceptible to oscillations of their inclination angles, which means their currently observed configurations could be due to planet-planet interactions alone. We also provide constraints and predictions for the expected transit duration variations (TDVs) for each planet. In these multi-planet compact Kepler systems, oscillations of their inclination angles are remarkably hard to excite; as a result, they tend to remain continually mutually transiting (CMT-stable). We study this issue further by augmenting the planet masses and determining the enhancement factor required for oscillations to move the systems out of transit. The oscillations of inclination found here inform the recently suggested dichotomy in the sample of solar systems observed by Kepler.

10.1093/mnras/stv2444

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A Multiplanet System’s Sole Super-puff: Exploring Allowable Physical Parameters for the Cold Super-puff HIP 41378 f

The Astronomical Journal (2022)

Michelle Belkovski Juliette Becker Alex R. Howe Isaac Malsky Konstantin Batygin

The census of known exoplanets exhibits a variety of physical parameters, including densities that are measured to span the range from less dense than styrofoam to more dense than iron. These densities represent a large diversity of interior structures. Despite this staggering diversity, recent analyses have shown that the densities of planets that orbit a common star exhibit remarkable uniformity. A fascinating exception to this is the system HIP 41378 (also known as K2-93), which contains a super-puff planet, HIP 41378 f, as well as several planets with more typical bulk densities. The range of densities in this system begs the question of what physical processes are responsible for the disparate planetary structures in this system. In this paper, we consider how the densities of the planets in the HIP 41378 system would have changed over time as the host star evolved and the planets' atmospheres were subsequently affected by the evolving insolation level. We also present a range of allowable core masses for HIP 41378 f based on the measured planet parameters, and comment on the feasibility of the proposed existence of planetary rings around HIP 41378 f as an explanation for its current low density.

10.3847/1538-3881/ac6353

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Discovery and Physical Characterization of a Large Scattered Disk Object at 92 au

The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2017)

D. W. Gerdes M. Šako S. Hamilton Ke Zhang Tali Khain

We report the observation and physical characterization of the possible dwarf planet \UZ\ ("DeeDee"), a dynamically detached trans-Neptunian object discovered at 92 AU. This object is currently the second-most distant known trans-Neptunian object with reported orbital elements, surpassed in distance only by the dwarf planet Eris. The object was discovered with an $r$-band magnitude of 23.0 in data collected by the Dark Energy Survey between 2014 and 2016. Its 1140-year orbit has $(a,e,i) = (109~\mathrm{AU}, 0.65, 26.8^{\circ})$. It will reach its perihelion distance of 38 AU in the year 2142. Integrations of its orbit show it to be dynamically stable on Gyr timescales, with only weak interactions with Neptune. We have performed followup observations with ALMA, using 3 hours of on-source integration time to measure the object's thermal emission in the Rayleigh-Jeans tail. The signal is detected at 7$\sigma$ significance, from which we determine a $V$-band albedo of $13.1^{+3.3}_{-2.4}\mathrm{(stat)}^{+2.0}_{-1.4}\mathrm{(sys)}$ percent and a diameter of $635^{+57}_{-61}\mathrm{(stat)}^{+32}_{-39}\mathrm{(sys)}$~km, assuming a spherical body with uniform surface properties.

Trans-Neptunian object

Neptune

Geometric albedo

Orbit (dynamics)

Dwarf planet

10.3847/2041-8213/aa64d8

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Citations (32)

Search for L5 Earth Trojans with DECam

EPSC (2019)

Larissa Markwardt D. W. Gerdes Renu Malhotra Juliette Becker S. Hamilton

Most of the major planets in the Solar system support populations of co-orbiting bodies, known as Trojans, at their L4 and L5 Lagrange points. In contrast, Earth has only one known co-orbiting companion. This paper presents the results from a search for Earth Trojans (ETs) using the DECam instrument on the Blanco Telescope at CTIO. This search found no additional Trojans in spite of greater coverage compared to previous surveys of the L5 point. Therefore, the main result of this work is to place the most stringent constraints to date on the population of ETs. These constraints depend on assumptions regarding the underlying population properties, especially the slope of the magnitude distribution (which in turn depends on the size and albedo distributions of the objects). For standard assumptions, we calculate upper limits to a 90 per cent confidence limit on the L5 population of N_(ET) < 1 for magnitude H < 15.5, N_(ET) = 60–85 for H < 19.7, and N_(ET) = 97 for H = 20.4. This latter magnitude limit corresponds to Trojans ∼300 m in size for albedo 0.15. At H = 19.7, these upper limits are consistent with previous L4 ET constraints and significantly improve L5 constraints.

Albedo (alchemy)

Absolute magnitude

Lagrangian point

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Discovery of a Giant Planet Candidate Transiting a White Dwarf

American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #236 (2020)

Andrew Vanderburg S. Rappaport Siyi Xu I. Crossfield Juliette Becker

White (mutation)

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Near-resonance in a System of Sub-Neptunes from TESS

The Astronomical Journal (2019)

Samuel N. Quinn Juliette Becker Joseph E. Rodriguez Sam Hadden Chelsea X. Huang

We report the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ($TESS$) detection of a multi-planet system orbiting the $V=10.9$ K0 dwarf TOI 125. We find evidence for up to five planets, with varying confidence. Three high signal-to-noise transit signals correspond to sub-Neptune-sized planets ($2.76$, $2.79$, and $2.94\ R_{\oplus}$), and we statistically validate the planetary nature of the two inner planets ($P_b = 4.65$ days, $P_c = 9.15$ days). With only two transits observed, we report the outer object ($P_{.03} = 19.98$ days) as a high signal-to-noise ratio planet candidate. We also detect a candidate transiting super-Earth ($1.4\ R_{\oplus}$) with an orbital period of only $12.7$ hours and a candidate Neptune-sized planet ($4.2\ R_{\oplus}$) with a period of $13.28$ days, both at low signal-to-noise. This system is amenable to mass determination via radial velocities and transit timing variations, and provides an opportunity to study planets of similar size while controlling for age and environment. The ratio of orbital periods between TOI 125 b and c ($P_c/P_b = 1.97$) is slightly smaller than an exact 2:1 commensurability and is atypical of multiple planet systems from $Kepler$, which show a preference for period ratios just $wide$ of first-order period ratios. A dynamical analysis refines the allowed parameter space through stability arguments and suggests that, despite the nearly commensurate periods, the system is unlikely to be in resonance.

10.3847/1538-3881/ab3f2b

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Citations (49)