SETI bioastro: Inflated planets and their low-mass companions

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Inflated planets and their low-mass companions

Authors: Rosemary A. Mardling

(Submitted on 1 Oct 2007)

Abstract: Various mechanisms have been proposed to explain the inflated size
of HD 209458b after it became clear that it has no companions capable of
producing a stellar reflex velocity greater than around 5 m/s. Had there
been such a companion, the hypothesis that it forces the eccentricity of the
inflated planet thereby tidally heating it may have been readily accepted.

Here we summarize a paper by the author which shows that companion planets
with masses as low as a fraction of an Earth mass are capable of sustaining
a non-zero eccentricity in the observed planet for at least the age of the
system. While such companions produce stellar reflex velocities which are
fractions of a meter per second and hence are below the stellar jitter
limit, they are consistent with recent theoretical work which suggests that
the planet migration process often produces low-mass companions to
short-period giants.

Comments: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in ``Extreme Solar Systems'', D.
Fischer, F. Rasio, S. Thorsett and A. Wolszczan (eds), ASP Conf. Ser., 2007

Subjects: Astrophysics (astro-ph)

Cite as: arXiv:0710.0378v1 [astro-ph]

Submission history

From: Rosemary Mardling [view email]

[v1] Mon, 1 Oct 2007 20:14:58 GMT (70kb)

http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.0378

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