799 research outputs found
Modeling giant extrasolar ring systems in eclipse and the case of J1407b: sculpting by exomoons?
The light curve of 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6, a 16 Myr old star in the
Sco-Cen OB association, underwent a complex series of deep eclipses that lasted
56 days, centered on April 2007. This light curve is interpreted as the transit
of a giant ring system that is filling up a fraction of the Hill sphere of an
unseen secondary companion, J1407b. We fit the light curve with a model of an
azimuthally symmetric ring system, including spatial scales down to the
temporal limit set by the star's diameter and relative velocity. The best ring
model has 37 rings and extends out to a radius of 0.6 AU (90 million km), and
the rings have an estimated total mass on the order of . The ring
system has one clearly defined gap at 0.4 AU (61 million km), which we
hypothesize is being cleared out by a exosatellite orbiting
around J1407b. This eclipse and model implies that we are seeing a
circumplanetary disk undergoing a dynamic transition to an
exosatellite-sculpted ring structure and is one of the first seen outside our
Solar system.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Data
and computer code for model at: http://github.com/mkenworthy/exoring
Erratum: "Post-T Tauri Stars in the Nearest OB Association" (AJ, 124, 1670 [2002])
A few typos in Mamajek, Meyer, & Liebert (2002, AJ, 124, 1670) have been
corrected in this erratum (including two stellar misidentifications and an
incorrect power in the units of a slope). The most significant is the
correction of a sign error in the published polynomial conversion between Tycho
and Johnson-Cousins (B-V) colors.Comment: 1 page, to appear in April 2006 Astronomical Journa
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