Kepler photometry has revealed two unusual transiting companions orbiting an early A-star and a late B-star. In both cases the occultation of the companion is deeper than the transit. The occultation and transit with follow-up optical spectroscopy reveal a 9400 K early A-star, KOI-74 (KIC 6889235), with a companion in a 5.2 day orbit with a radius of 0.08 Rsun and a 10000 K late B-star KOI-81 (KIC 8823868) that has a companion in a 24 day orbit with a radius of 0.2 Rsun. We infer a temperature of 12250 K for KOI-74b and 13500 K for KOI-81b. We present 43 days of high duty cycle, 30 minute cadence photometry, with models demonstrating the intriguing properties of these object, and speculate on their nature.
@article{arxiv.1001.3420,
title = {Kepler Observations of Transiting Hot Compact Objects},
author = {Jason F. Rowe and William J. Borucki and David Koch and Steve B. Howell and Gibor Basri and Natalie Batalha and Timothy M. Brown and Douglas Caldwell and William D. Cochran and Edward Dunham and Andrea K. Dupree and Jonathan J. Fortney and Thomas N. Gautier and Ronald L. Gilliland and Jon Jenkins and David W. Latham and Jack . J. Lissauer and Geoff Marcy and David G. Monet and Dimitar Sasselov and William F. Welsh},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1001.3420},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
12 pages, 3 figures, submitted to ApJL (updated to correct KOI74 lightcurve)