Josh Carter (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

Kepler's Multi-Eclipsing Hierarchical Triples: Photo-dynamical Fits and Accurate Masses and Radii

The Kepler mission has opened a new era of high-precision time-series photometry. It has allowed for the wholesale detection of planetary systems and the detailed characterization of both stars and planets. The Kepler data quality and restricted mission scope has also led to the unveiling of rare events. Amongst these are the discovery of hierarchical multi-eclipsing systems. These systems are observationally biased to have small periods and period ratios and, consequently, have short (Kepler mission lifetime) secular variation timescales. This dynamical information is encoded in variable eclipse morphologies. I describe photometric-dynamical fits to the these light curves. I present results from these fits; namely, I report accurate absolute bulk parameters (masses and radii) that are determined free of typical model-dependencies. I compare these parameters with theoretical expectations and comment on the efficacy of these theoretical models. I briefly consider the formation and long-term dynamical evolution of these systems. Finally, I speculate on future extensions and applications of this work.