Light curve modelling for mutual transits

TL;DR

This paper introduces a versatile algorithm for modeling light curves during mutual transits in multi-body stellar and planetary systems, capable of handling complex geometries and limb darkening effects, and demonstrates its application in determining orbital inclinations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, general algorithm for light curve modeling of mutual transits with no geometric constraints, applicable to various limb darkening models.

Findings

Mutual transits provide unambiguous constraints on orbital inclinations.

The method can analyze systems with arbitrary numbers of transiting bodies.

Application to real systems yields complete inclination profiles.

Abstract

In this paper we describe an algorithm and deduce the related mathematical formulae that allows the computation of observed fluxes in stellar and planetary systems with arbitrary number of bodies being part of a transit or occultation event. The presented method does not have any limits or constraints for the geometry and can be applied for almost all of the available limb darkening models as well. As a demonstration, we apply this scheme to gather information for the orbital inclinations from multiple transiting planetary systems in cases when mutual transits occur. We also show here that these mutual events constrain inclinations unambiguously, yielding a complete picture for the whole system.