Kepler detection of a new extreme planetary system orbiting the subdwarf-B pulsator KIC10001893

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a unique planetary system around the sdB star KIC10001893, with three Earth-sized planets in tight, resonant orbits, and evidence of tidal excitation of stellar pulsations by a planetary companion.

Contribution

It presents the first evidence of tidally excited g-mode pulsations in an sdB star caused by planetary companions, revealing a new type of extreme planetary system.

Findings

Three Earth-sized planets in tight, resonant orbits around KIC10001893.

Detection of tidally excited pulsation modes in the star.

Orbital periods close to 3:2 and 5:2 resonances.

Abstract

KIC10001893 is one out of 19 subdwarf-B (sdB) pulsators observed by the Kepler spacecraft in its primary mission. In addition to tens of pulsation frequencies in the g-mode domain, its Fourier spectrum shows three weak peaks at very low frequencies, which is too low to be explained in terms of g modes. The most convincing explanation is that we are seeing the orbital modulation of three Earth-size planets (or planetary remnants) in very tight orbits, which are illuminated by the strong stellar radiation. The orbital periods are P1=5.273, P2=7.807, and P3=19.48 hours, and the period ratios P2/P1=1.481 and P3/P2=2.495 are very close to the 3:2 and 5:2 resonances, respectively. One of the main pulsation modes of the star at 210.68 {\mu}Hz corresponds to the third harmonic of the orbital frequency of the inner planet, suggesting that we see, for the first time in an sdB star, g-mode pulsations tidally excited by a planetary companion. The extreme planetary system that emerges from the Kepler data is very similar to the recent discovery of two Earth-size planets orbiting the sdB pulsator KIC05807616 (Charpinet et al. 2011a).