Kepler and the Behemoth: Three Mini-Neptunes in a 40 Million Year Old Association

TL;DR

This study identifies and characterizes three mini-Neptune exoplanets in a 40-million-year-old stellar association, providing insights into early planetary evolution and confirming the existence of such planets at a young age.

Contribution

The paper presents the discovery and age determination of three mini-Neptunes in a young stellar association, using Gaia, TESS, and spectroscopy data, highlighting their early existence.

Findings

Three mini-Neptunes around 2 Earth radii identified in a 40 Myr old association.

All three planets are confirmed with very low false positive probabilities.

Planets demonstrate that mini-Neptunes form and exist at very young stellar ages.

Abstract

Stellar positions and velocities from Gaia are yielding a new view of open cluster dispersal. Here we present an analysis of a group of stars spanning Cepheus to Hercules, hereafter the Cep-Her complex. The group includes four Kepler Objects of Interest: Kepler-1643 b ($2.32 \pm 0.13$ Earth-radii, 5.3 day orbital period), KOI-7368 b ($2.22 \pm 0.12$ Earth-radii, 6.8 days), KOI-7913 Ab ($2.34 \pm 0.18$ Earth-radii, 24.2 days), and Kepler-1627 Ab ($3.85 \pm 0.11$ Earth-radii, 7.2 days). The latter Neptune-sized planet is in part of the Cep-Her complex called the $\delta$ Lyr cluster (Bouma et al. 2022). Here we focus on the former three systems, which are in other regions of the association. Based on kinematic evidence from Gaia, stellar rotation periods from TESS, and spectroscopy, these three objects are also approximately 40 million years (Myr) old. More specifically, we find that Kepler-1643 is $46^{+9}_{-7}$ Myr old, based on its membership in a dense sub-cluster of the complex called RSG-5. KOI-7368 and KOI-7913 are $36^{+10}_{-8}$ Myr old, and are in a diffuse region that we call CH-2. Based on the transit shapes and high resolution imaging, all three objects are most likely planets, with false positive probabilities of $6 \times 10^{-9}$, $4 \times 10^{-3}$, and $1 \times 10^{-4}$ for Kepler-1643, KOI-7368, and KOI-7913 respectively. These planets demonstrate that mini-Neptunes with sizes of approximately 2 Earth radii exist at ages of 40 million years.