Revisiting a gravity-darkened and precessing planetary system PTFO 8-8695: spin-orbit non-synchronous case

TL;DR

This study reanalyzes the PTFO 8-8695 system's lightcurves, exploring non-synchronous spin-orbit configurations and identifying multiple precession solutions, with one favored by observational data, enhancing understanding of gravity darkening and precession effects.

Contribution

It extends previous models by discarding the spin-orbit synchronous assumption, revealing multiple precession solutions and identifying a preferred precession period based on observational data.

Findings

Identified three possible nodal precession periods: 199, 475, and 827 days.

The 199-day precession solution best fits the 2014-2015 photometry data.

Discovered that non-synchronous spin-orbit configurations can explain the observed lightcurves.

Abstract

We reanalyse the time-variable lightcurves of the transiting planetary system PTFO 8-8695, in which a planet of 3 to 4 Jupiter mass orbits around a rapidly rotating pre-main-sequence star. Both the planetary orbital period of 0.448 days and the stellar spin period less than 0.671 days are unusually short, which makes PTFO 8-8695 an ideal system to check the model of gravity darkening and nodal precession. While the previous analysis of PTFO 8-8695 assumed that the stellar spin and planetary orbital periods are the same, we extend the analysis by discarding the spin-orbit synchronous condition, and find three different classes of solutions roughly corresponding to the nodal precession periods of 199$\pm$16, 475$\pm$21, and 827$\pm$53 days that reproduce the transit lightcurves observed in 2009 and 2010. We compare the predicted lightcurves of the three solutions against the photometry data of a few percent accuracy obtained at Koyama Astronomical Observatory in 2014 and 2015, and find that the solution with the precession period of 199$\pm$16 days is preferred even though preliminary. Future prospect and implications to other transiting systems are briefly discussed.