Uncovering the ultimate planet impostor. An eclipsing brown dwarf in a hierarchical triple with two evolved stars

TL;DR

This study reveals that what appeared as a promising exoplanet candidate was actually a hierarchical triple system with an eclipsing brown dwarf, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive follow-up observations for accurate classification.

Contribution

The paper presents a detailed multi-technique follow-up that uncovers a false positive, identifying a hierarchical triple system with an eclipsing brown dwarf around an evolved star, a novel case in exoplanet research.

Findings

KOI-3886.01 is a false positive, not a planet.

The system is a hierarchical triple with a brown dwarf.

The brown dwarf is highly irradiated and the largest known in its class.

Abstract

Exoplanet searches through space-based photometric time series have shown to be very efficient in recent years. However, follow-up efforts on the detected planet candidates have been demonstrated to be critical to uncover the true nature of the transiting objects. In this paper we show a detailed analysis of one of those false positives hidden as planetary signals. In this case, the candidate KOI-3886.01 showed clear evidence of a planetary nature from various techniques. Indeed, the properties of the fake planet set it among the most interesting and promising for the study of planetary evolution as the star leaves the main sequence. To unveil the true nature of this system, we present a complete set of observational techniques including high-spatial resolution imaging, high-precision photometric time series (showing eclipses, phase curve variations and asteroseismology signals), high-resolution spectroscopy and derived radial velocities, to unveil the true nature of this planet candidate. We find that KOI-3886.01 is an interesting false positive case: a hierarchical triple system composed by a $\sim$K2III giant star (KOI-3886A) accompanied by a close-in eclipsing binary formed by a subgiant $\sim$G4IV star (KOI-3886B) and a brown dwarf (KOI-3886C). In particular, KOI-3886C is one of the most irradiated brown dwarfs known to date, showing the largest radius in this substellar regime. It is also the first eclipsing brown dwarf known around an evolved star. In this paper we highlight the relevance of complete sets of follow-up observations to extrasolar planets detected by the transit technique using large-pixel photometers such as Kepler and TESS, and in the future, PLATO. In particular, multi-color high-spatial resolution imaging was the first hint toward ruling out the planet scenario in this system.