Characterizing the Cool KOIs VIII. Parameters of the Planets Orbiting Kepler's Coolest Dwarfs

TL;DR

This study analyzes Kepler data to confirm and characterize 165 planet candidates orbiting the coolest M-dwarf stars, providing detailed transit and stellar parameters to aid future exoplanet research.

Contribution

It offers a uniform analysis of Kepler data for M-dwarfs, confirming most signals, fitting transit models, and providing publicly available posterior samples and stellar parameters.

Findings

Confirmed 165 planet candidates around 106 M-dwarfs.

Provided precise transit timing variations and stellar rotation measurements.

Made posterior samples publicly available for further research.

Abstract

The coolest dwarf stars targeted by the Kepler Mission constitute a relatively small but scientifically valuable subset of the Kepler target stars, and provide a high-fidelity and nearby sample of transiting planetary systems. Using archival Kepler data spanning the entire primary mission we perform a uniform analysis to extract, confirm and characterize the transit signals discovered by the Kepler pipeline toward M-type dwarf stars. We recover all but two of the signals reported in a recent listing from the Exoplanet Archive resulting in 165 planet candidates associated with a sample of 106 low-mass stars. We fitted the observed light curves to transit models using Markov Chain Monte Carlo and we have made the posterior samples publicly available to facilitate further studies. We fitted empirical transit times to individual transit signals with significantly non-linear ephemerides for accurate recovery of transit parameters and measuring precise transit timing variations. We also provide the physical parameters for the stellar sample, including new measurements of stellar rotation, allowing the conversion of transit parameters into planet radii and orbital parameters.