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Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto

The Kepler-454 System: A Small, Not-rocky Inner Planet, a Jovian World, and a Distant Companion

S. Gettel, D. Charbonneau, C. D. Dressing, L. A. Buchhave, X. Dumusque, A. Vanderburg, A. S. Bonomo, L. Malavolta, F. Pepe, A. C. Cameron, D. W. Latham, S. Udry, G. W. Marcy, H. Isaacson, A. W. Howard, G. R. Davies, V. Silva Aguirre, H. Kjeldsen, T. R. Bedding, E. Lopez, L. Affer, R. Cosentino, P. Figueira, A. F. Martinez Fiorenzano, A. Harutyunyan, J. A. Johnson, M. López-Morales, C. Lovis, M. Mayor, G. Micela, E. Molinari, F. Motalebi, D. F. Phillips, G. Piotto, D. Queloz, K. Rice, D. Sasselov, D. Ségransan, A. Sozzetti, C. A. Watson, S. Basu, T. L. Campante, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, S. D. Kawaler, T. S. Metcalfe, R. Handberg, M. N. Lund, M. Lundkvist, D. Huber, W. J. Chaplin

Abstract
Kepler-454 (KOI-273) is a relatively bright (V = 11.69 mag), Sun-like star that hosts a transiting planet candidate in a 10.6 day orbit. From spectroscopy, we estimate the stellar temperature to be 5687 ± 50 K, its metallicity to be [m/H] = 0.32 ± 0.08, and the projected rotational velocity to be v sin i 〈 2.4 km s-1. We combine these values with a study of the asteroseismic frequencies from short cadence Kepler data to estimate the stellar mass to be {1.028}-0.03+0.04{M}, the radius to be 1.066 ± 0.012 R, and the age to be {5.25}-1.39+1.41 Gyr. We estimate the radius of the 10.6 day planet as 2.37 ± 0.13 R. Using 63 radial velocity observations obtained with the HARPS-N spectrograph on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo and 36 observations made with the HIRES spectrograph at the Keck Observatory, we measure the mass of this planet to be 6.8 ± 1.4 M. We also detect two additional non-transiting companions, a planet with a minimum mass of 4.46 ± 0.12 MJ in a nearly circular 524 day orbit and a massive companion with a period 〉10 years and mass 〉12.1 MJ. The 12 exoplanets with radii 〈2.7 R and precise mass measurements appear to fall into two populations, with those 〈1.6 R following an Earth-like composition curve and larger planets requiring a significant fraction of volatiles. With a density of 2.76 ± 0.73 g cm-3, Kepler-454b lies near the mass transition between these two populations and requires the presence of volatiles and/or H/He gas.

Keywords
planetary systems, planets and satellites: composition, stars: individual: KOI-273 {amp} KIC 3102384, asteroseismology, techniques: radial velocities

The Astrophysical Journal
Volume 816
January 2016

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