A massive exoplanet candidate around KOI-13: Independent confirmation by ellipsoidal variations

TL;DR

This paper confirms the existence of a massive exoplanet candidate around KOI-13 using Kepler data, modeling various light curve effects to estimate its mass and nature, and discusses its potential as one of the hottest known exoplanets.

Contribution

It provides the first independent confirmation of KOI-13.01 as a planet through light curve analysis of ellipsoidal variations, constraining its mass and distinguishing it from a brown dwarf.

Findings

Mass of KOI-13.01 estimated at 8.3 ± 1.25 Jupiter masses

Confirmed the transiting object is a planet, not a brown dwarf

Identified the host star as one of the hottest known exoplanet systems

Abstract

We present an analysis of the KOI-13.01 candidate exoplanet system included in the September 2011 Kepler data release. The host star is a known and relatively bright $(m_{\rm KP} = 9.95)$ visual binary with a separation significantly smaller (0.8 arcsec) than the size of a Kepler pixel (4 arcsec per pixel). The Kepler light curve shows both primary and secondary eclipses, as well as significant out-of-eclipse light curve variations. We confirm that the transit occurs round the brighter of the two stars. We model the relative contributions from (i) thermal emission from the companion, (ii) planetary reflected light, (iii) Doppler beaming, and (iv) ellipsoidal variations in the host-star arising from the tidal distortion of the host star by its companion. Our analysis, based on the light curve alone, enables us to constrain the mass of the KOI-13.01 companion to be $M_{\rm C} = 8.3 \pm 1.25M_{\rm J}$ and thus demonstrates that the transiting companion is a planet (rather than a brown dwarf which was recently proposed by \cite{b7}). The high temperature of the host star (Spectral Type A5-7V, $T_{\rm eff} = 8511-8020$ K), combined with the proximity of its companion KOI-13.01, may make it one of the hottest exoplanets known, with a detectable thermal contribution to the light curve even in the Kepler optical passband. However, the single passband of the Kepler light curve does not enable us to unambiguously distinguish between the thermal and reflected components of the planetary emission. Infrared observations may help to break the degeneracy, while radial velocity follow-up with $\sigma \sim$ 100 m s$^{-1}$ precision should confirm the mass of the planet.