Characterization of the K2-18 multi-planetary system with HARPS: A habitable zone super-Earth and discovery of a second, warm super-Earth on a non-coplanar orbit

TL;DR

This study characterizes the K2-18 exoplanet system, measuring the mass of the habitable zone super-Earth K2-18b and discovering a second, non-coplanar super-Earth K2-18c, highlighting the system's potential for atmospheric studies.

Contribution

The paper provides the first precise mass measurement of K2-18b and reports the discovery of a second super-Earth, K2-18c, with non-coplanar orbit, advancing understanding of multi-planet systems around M dwarfs.

Findings

K2-18b has a mass of 8.0 ± 1.9 Earth masses and a density suggesting a gaseous envelope or water-rich composition.

A second super-Earth, K2-18c, is detected at ~9 days orbit, likely non-transiting and non-coplanar.

Orbital eccentricities are constrained to be less than 0.43 and 0.47 for K2-18b and c, respectively.

Abstract

The bright M dwarf K2-18 at 34 pc is known to host a transiting super-Earth-sized planet orbiting within the star's habitable zone; K2-18b. Given the superlative nature of this system for studying an exoplanetary atmosphere receiving similar levels of insolation as the Earth, we aim to characterize the planet's mass which is required to interpret atmospheric properties and infer the planet's bulk composition. We obtain precision radial velocity measurements with the HARPS spectrograph and couple those measurements with the K2 photometry to jointly model the observed radial velocity variation with planetary signals and a radial velocity jitter model based on Gaussian process regression. We measure the mass of K2-18b to be $8.0 \pm 1.9$ M$_{\oplus}$ with a bulk density of $3.7 \pm 0.9$ g/cm$^3$ which may correspond to a predominantly rocky planet with a significant gaseous envelope or an ocean planet with a water mass fraction $\gtrsim 50$%. We also find strong evidence for a second, warm super-Earth K2-18c at $\sim 9$ days with a semi-major axis 2.4 times smaller than the transiting K2-18b. After re-analyzing the available light curves of K2-18 we conclude that K2-18c is not detected in transit and therefore likely has an orbit that is non-coplanar with K2-18b. A suite of dynamical integrations with varying simulated orbital eccentricities of the two planets are used to further constrain each planet's eccentricity posterior from which we measure $e_b < 0.43$ and $e_c < 0.47$ at 99% confidence. The discovery of the inner planet K2-18c further emphasizes the prevalence of multi-planet systems around M dwarfs. The characterization of the density of K2-18b reveals that the planet likely has a thick gaseous envelope which along with its proximity to the Solar system makes the K2-18 planetary system an interesting target for the atmospheric study of an exoplanet receiving Earth-like insolation.