Transit Timing Variation of Near-Resonance Planetary Pairs. II. Confirmation of 30 planets in 15 Multiple Planet Systems

TL;DR

This paper confirms 30 new planets in 15 multi-planet systems near first-order resonances using Transit Timing Variations, demonstrating their planetary nature and providing constraints on their masses and interactions.

Contribution

It extends previous work by confirming additional planets via TTVs and analyzing their mass ratios and resonant interactions using publicly available Kepler data.

Findings

30 planets confirmed in 15 systems via TTVs

All systems near first-order mean motion resonances

Constraints on planetary masses and interactions

Abstract

Following on from Paper I in our series (Xie 2013), we report the confirmation by Transit Timing Variations (TTVs) of a further 30 planets in 15 multiple planet systems, using the publicly available Kepler light curves (Q0-Q16). All of these fifteen pairs are near first-order Mean Motion Resonances (MMR), showing sinusoidal TTVs consistent with theoretically predicted periods, which demonstrate they are orbiting and interacting in the same systems. Although individual masses cannot be accurately extracted based only on TTVs (because of the well known degeneracy between mass and eccentricity), the measured TTV phases and amplitudes can still place relatively tight constraints on their mass ratios and upper limits on their masses, which confirm their planetary nature. Some of these systems (KOI-274, KOI-285, KOI-370 and KOI-2672) are relatively bright and thus suitable for further follow-up observations.