Hiding Planets Behind a Big Friend: Mutual Inclinations of Multi-Planet Systems with External Companions

TL;DR

This paper proposes that external giant planets or stellar companions can excite mutual inclinations in multi-planet systems, explaining the observed excess of single-transit systems in Kepler data.

Contribution

The study introduces an analytic framework to quantify how external perturbers influence mutual inclinations, offering insights into the Kepler dichotomy and planetary system architectures.

Findings

Mutual inclination increases with perturber mass and inclination.

Secular resonances can cause large mutual inclinations even with small perturber inclinations.

External companions can explain the observed excess of single-transit systems.

Abstract

The {\it Kepler} mission has detected thousands of planetary systems with 1-7 transiting planets packed within 0.7~au from their host stars. There is an apparent excess of single-transit planet systems that cannot be explained by transit geometries alone, when a single planetary mutual inclination dispersion is assumed. This suggests that the observed compact planetary systems have at least two different architectures. We present a scenario where the "Kepler dichotomy" may be explained by the action of an external giant planet or stellar companion misaligned with the inner multi-planet system. The external companion excites mutual inclinations of the inner planets, causing such systems to appear as "Kepler singles" in transit surveys. We derive approximate analytic expressions (in various limiting regimes), calibrated with numerical calculations, for the mutual inclination excitations for various planetary systems and perturber properties (mass $m_p$, semi-major axis $a_p$ and inclination $\theta_p$). In general, the excited mutual inclination increases with $m_p/a_p^3$ and $\theta_p$, although secular resonances may lead to large mutual inclinations even for small $\theta_p$. We discuss the implications of our results for understanding the dynamical history of transiting planet systems with known external perturbers.