Sub-Neptunes Show a Stronger Correlation with Cold Jupiters than Super-Earths Especially in Metal-rich Systems

TL;DR

This study reveals that in metal-rich systems, sub-Neptunes are significantly more likely to have cold Jupiters than super-Earths, indicating a strong correlation influenced by stellar metallicity.

Contribution

It demonstrates a clear, statistically significant correlation between cold Jupiters and sub-Neptunes in metal-rich systems, a novel insight into planetary system formation.

Findings

Inner sub-Neptunes in metal-rich systems have a 42.6% chance of hosting cold Jupiters.

Super-Earth systems show no significant correlation with cold Jupiters in metal-rich environments.

Metal-rich disks more efficiently produce both large inner planets and outer cold Jupiters.

Abstract

Correlations between the inner small planets and cold giants encodes the formation and evolution of planetary systems. It remains unclear if the correlation differs on the two sides of the radius valley. In this work, we compute the conditional frequency of cold Jupiters in systems with only inner sub-Neptunes $P(\rm CJ|SN)$ and those with only inner super-Earths $P(\rm CJ|SE)$. We find that, around transiting sample around metal-rich stars, $P(\rm CJ|SN, [Fe/H]>0)$ and $P(\rm CJ|SE, [Fe/H]>0)$ are $42.6^{+10.6}_{-9.9}\%$ and $14.5^{+12.7}_{-6.9}\%$. Comparing with the field giant frequency ($14.3^{+2.0}_{-1.8}\%$), we show that inner sub-Neptunes and cold Jupiters exhibit a significant positive correlation for metal-rich systems with a confidence level of 99.95\%, whereas this correlation is absent for systems with super-Earths. We also consider a homogeneous Kepler-Keck subsample and derive similar results, with $P(\rm CJ|SN, [Fe/H]>0)$ of $45.8^{+18.6}_{-16.3}\%$ and $P(\rm CJ|SE, [Fe/H]>0)$ of $13.3^{+17.0}_{-6.8}\%$. Radial velocity sample shows consistent results, with metal-rich systems hosting massive inner planets exhibiting a strong positive correlation (confidence level of 99.11\%) with outer cold Jupiters ($P(\rm CJ|M_{p}>10M_\oplus, [Fe/H]>0) = 34.6^{+11.0}_{-9.1}\%$). These results can be naturally understood since metal-rich disks are expected to more efficiently produce both outer cold Jupiters and inner planets with larger radii and masses. Our findings highlight the critical role of stellar metallicity in shaping planetary architectures, particularly for large/massive planets.