English

Transit Timing Variation of K2-237b: Hints Toward Planet Disk Migration

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2024-09-13 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

Hot Jupiters should initially form at considerable distances from host stars and subsequently migrate towards inner regions, supported directly by transit timing variation (TTV). We report the TTV of K2-237b, using reproduced timings fitted from \textit{Kepler} K2 and \textit{TESS} data. The timings span from 2016 to 2021, leading to an observational baseline of 5 years. The timing evolution presents a significant bias to a constant period scenario. The model evidence is evaluated utilizing the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), which favours the scenario of period decay with a Δ\DeltaBIC of 14.1. The detected TTV induces a period decay rate (P˙\dot{P}) of -1.14±\pm0.28×\times108^{-8} days per day (-0.36 s/year). Fitting the spectral energy distribution, we find infrared excess at the significance level of 1.5 σ\sigma for WISE W1 and W2 bands, and 2 σ\sigma level for W3 and W4 bands. This potentially reveals the existence of a stellar disk, consisting of hot dust at 800±\pm300 K, showing a Ldust/LL_{dust}/L_{\ast} of 5±\pm3×\times103^{-3}. We obtain a stellar age of 1.00.7+1.4^{+1.4}_{-0.7}×\times109^{9} yr from isochrone fitting. The properties of K2-237b potentially serve as a direct observational support to the planet disk migration though more observation are needed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2409.07865,
  title  = {Transit Timing Variation of K2-237b: Hints Toward Planet Disk Migration},
  author = {Fan Yang and Richard J. Long and Eamonn Kerins and Supachai Awiphan and Su-Su Shan and Bo Zhang and Yogesh C. Joshi and Napaporn A-thano and Ing-Guey Jiang and Akshay Priyadarshi and Ji-Feng Liu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.07865},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

5 pages, Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

R2 v1 2026-06-28T18:42:13.803Z