Generalized Peas-in-a-Pod: Extending Intra-System Mass Uniformity to Non-TTV Systems via the Gini Index

TL;DR

This study investigates intra-system mass uniformity in non-TTV exoplanet systems using the Gini index, revealing significant uniformity and a correlation with disk properties, extending previous findings beyond resonant systems.

Contribution

It demonstrates that intra-system mass uniformity exists in non-resonant systems measured via radial velocity, expanding the scope of previous TTV-based studies.

Findings

Non-TTV systems show intra-system mass uniformity at ~2.5 sigma confidence.

A correlation exists between disk surface density and mass inequality.

Massive disks tend to produce systems with more unequal planetary masses.

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that planets belonging to the same close-in, compact multiple-planet system tend to exhibit a striking degree of uniformity in their sizes. A similar trend has also been found to hold for the masses of such planets, but considerations of such intra-system mass uniformity have generally been limited to statistical samples wherein a majority of systems have constituent planetary mass measurements obtained via analysis of transit timing variations (TTVs). Since systems with strong TTV signals typically lie in or near mean motion resonance, it remains to be seen whether intra-system mass uniformity is still readily emergent for non-resonant systems with non-TTV mass provenance. We thus present in this work a mass uniformity analysis of 17 non-TTV systems with masses measured via radial velocity (RV) measurements. Using the Gini index, a common statistic for economic inequality, as our primary metric for uniformity, we find that our sample of 17 non-TTV systems displays intra-system mass uniformity at a level of $\sim 2.5 \sigma$ confidence. We provide additional discussion of possible statistical and astrophysical underpinnings for this result. We also demonstrate the existence of a correlation ($r = 0.25$) between characteristic solid surface density ($\Sigma_0$) of the minimum mass extrasolar nebula (MMEN) and system mass Gini index, suggesting that more massive disks may generally form systems with more unequal planetary masses.