Mass-radius relationship for planets with Rp<4 Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Wolfgang A.
  2. Rogers L.A.
  3. Ford E.B.
  4. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

The Kepler Mission has discovered thousands of planets with radii <4R_{earth}_, paving the way for the first statistical studies of the dynamics, formation, and evolution of these sub-Neptunes and super-Earths. Planetary masses are an important physical property for these studies, and yet the vast majority of Kepler planet candidates do not have theirs measured. A key concern is therefore how to map the measured radii to mass estimates in this Earth-to-Neptune size range where there are no Solar System analogs. Previous works have derived deterministic, one-to-one relationships between radius and mass. However, if these planets span a range of compositions as expected, then an intrinsic scatter about this relationship must exist in the population. Here we present the first probabilistic mass-radius relationship (M-R relation) evaluated within a Bayesian framework, which both quantifies this intrinsic dispersion and the uncertainties on the M-R relation parameters. We analyze how the results depend on the radius range of the sample, and on how the masses were measured. Assuming that the M-R relation can be described as a power law with a dispersion that is constant and normally distributed, we find that M/M_{earth}_=2.7(R/R_{earth}_)^1.3^, a scatter in mass of 1.9M_{earth}_, and a mass constraint to physically plausible densities, is the "best-fit" probabilistic M-R relation for the sample of RV-measured transiting sub-Neptunes (R_pl_<4R_{earth}_). More broadly, this work provides a framework for further analyses of the M-R relation and its probable dependencies on period and stellar properties.

Keywords
  1. solar-system-planets
  2. stellar-masses
  3. stellar-radii
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2016ApJ...825...19W
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/825/19
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/825/19
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.18250019

Access

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https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/825/19
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/825/19
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/825/19
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https://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/825/19/table2?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/825/19/table2?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/825/19/table2?

History

2016-10-05T14:19:12Z
Resource record created
2016-10-05T14:19:12Z
Created
2017-11-29T11:48:11Z
Updated

Contact

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CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
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cds-question@unistra.fr