Eclipse, Transit and Occultation Geometry of Planetary Systems at Exo-Syzygy
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cis,tastadoclaingoer fplanetary of exo-syzygy geometry at systems occultation and transit Eclipse, c 1 iir Veras Dimitri eateto hsc,Uiest fWrik oetyCV4 Coventry Warwick, of University Physics, of Department -al [email protected] E-mail: 00RAS 0000 nteagto srnmr,teterms the astronomers, of argot the In occultation aecm orpeetszg ndifferent in syzygy represent to come have 1 ⋆ Elm´e Breedt , 000 –3(00 rne 3Mrh21 M L (MN 2017 March 13 Printed (0000) 1–13 , lnt n aelts eea lntadstlie:dnmclev dynamical satellites: and planet – general satellites: and three-bod planets any algorit in words: algebraic properties Key basic eclipse a characterize quickly detailing mult to by syst used contains conclude Solar We be which both TR properties. of of the tables syzygy first to reference 1 provide the formalism and the – – planets apply systems habitable then Kepler-77 We implement plane c and criteria. and general 1 exo-syzygy, Kepler-444 stability the and at derive with We stars occur concert III). 2 to in (Case eclipses with moon annular I), 1 and and (Case partial star planets 1 2 planet, three-bod and 1 of viewp with star types three exo-Earth 1 and with primarily system systems: Solar a d the mount from to we the formulation occultations Here, the as and considerations. well broader transits as fe prompt eclipses, sending system, them, of possibility pe to Solar the and Earth-centric spacecraft the zones habitable an of in exo-planets from parts known different described to usually missions are planeta in phenomena occur frequently related oppositions and conjunctions Although ABSTRACT eclipse 1 ciss–oclain eeta ehnc ehd:aayia – analytical methods: – mechanics celestial – occultations – eclipses , transit n- , A,UK 7AL, AgaaEcdee l 06 a rvdda da flyby ideal zone an habitable the provided in has planet 2016) detectable Centuri) al. a (Proxima (Anglada-Escud´e et host neighbour to stellar for- nearest happens great which our The spacecraft that perspectives. robotic different tune the with of and us few under- provided MESSENGER a have Cassini, and but them. and are planets on Horizons viewpoints), habitable like New is of find life variety to what desire a stand febrile from system the data Solar (ii) the back of parts beam other numer- (and visit the that (i) missions general with space more impetus ous added a received in How- now syzygys surface. has Earth’s studying context the for to motivation close the or ever, on viewpoint a suming 2016). al. et (Kostov Earth the both and with stars syzygy parent achieved its already of exo-pla have reality: b a Kepler-1647 but of possibility, idea like a The just 2010). not Holman is potential exo-syzygy & our the (Ragozzine besides system” have systems solar planetary stars own information-rich or “most star be planet parent to multiple their containing transit made systems which 2015). were exo-planetary Mamajek exo-moon & fact, pu- (Kenworthy an In syzygys first of around the because different and rings possible 2014), a of al. of detection et because tative (Braga-Ribas syzygy only of detected type were Chariklo teroid lotuiutul,szgshv ensuidb as- by studied been have syzygys ubiquitously, Almost A T E tl l v2.2) file style X xrslrplanetary extrasolar y rv h emtyof geometry the erive madTRAPPIST- and em lto n stability and olution ysses eclipse- systems, ry system. y niin o total, for onditions hmi ahcase each in them robot atherweight setv.Space rspective. Cs I,and II), (Case t it n apply and oint, pepotentially iple n ubrof number ing mwihcan which hm APPIST-1, nets s 2 Veras & Breedt candidate for the Breakthrough Starshot mission1, which However, in both observational and theoretical studies, has already received significant financial backing. orbits with respect to centres of mass (as in barycentric and Here, we formulate a geometry for three-body syzygys Jacobi coordinates) are sometimes more valuable. Denote in a general-enough context for wide applications and which r123 as the distance of the target to the centre of mass of yields an easy-to-apply collection of formulae given only the the primary and occulter. Then radii and mutual distances of the three bodies. We then ap- M1 ply the formulae to a wide variety of Solar system syzygys r13 = r123 + r12. (1) M1 + M2 and extrasolar syzygys. We begin in Section 2 by establish- ing our setup. We then place eclipses into context for three Observations from Earth rarely catch three-bodies in an different combinations of stars, planets and moons in Sec- exo-planetary system in syzygy. Therefore, instantaneously tions 3-5 by providing limits in each case from the results measured or estimated mutual distances may not be as help- of the derivations in Appendices A and B and from stabil- ful as orbital parameters, such as semimajor axis a, eccen- ity criteria. We apply our formulae to a plethora of specific tricity e and true anomaly Π. They are related to separation cases for the Solar system in Section 6 and for extrasolar sys- as tems in Sections 7-8. We conclude with a useful algorithm, 2 a12 1 − e12 including a user-friendly flow chart, in Section 9. r12 = (2) All data used in the applications are taken from two 1+ e12 cos [Π12(ts)] sources unless otherwise specified: the Jet Propulsion Labo- with similar forms for r23, r13 and r123. ratory Solar System Dynamics website2 and the Exoplanet 3 The values of a and e can be treated as fixed on orbital Data Explorer . timescales, whereas Π is a proxy for time evolution. In three- body systems, at some points along the mutual orbits – at nodal intersections – the three bodies achieve syzygy. The 2 SETUP inclinations, longitudes of ascending nodes and arguments of pericentre of the bodies help determine eclipse details We model planetary systems that include three spherical associated with motion (such as duration length); here we bodies, at least one of which is a star. Because we consider consider only the static case at syzygy, and hence are un- the systems only at syzygy, no motion is assumed, allowing concerned with these other parameters, as well as the time for a general treatment with wide applicability. at which the true anomalies achieve syzygy.
2.1 Nomenclature 2.3 Radiation cones We denote the star as the “primary”, the body on or around which an observer/detector might see an eclipse as the “tar- In all cases, the radiation emanating from the primary will get”, and the occulting/transiting/eclipsing body as the “oc- form two different types of cones with the occulter, because culter”. The occulter may be a planet (Case I), star (Case II) the latter is smaller than the former. The first type of cone, or moon (Case III), and we consider these individual cases yielding total and annular eclipses, is formed from outer or in turn in Sections 3-5. We denote the radii of the primary, external tangent lines (Fig. 1; for derivations, see Appendix A). The second type of cone, yielding partial eclipses, form occulter and target to be, respectively R1, R2 and R3, and the pairwise distances between the centres of the objects as from the inner or internal tangent lines (Fig. 2; for deriva- tions, see Appendix B). r12, r23 and r13. We assume that the primary is the largest of the three objects, such that R1 > R2 and R1 > R3, but make no assumptions about the relative sizes of the occulter and target. 3 CASE I: PLANET OCCULTER All results are derived in terms of the radii and mutual distances only. The masses of the bodies M1, M2 and M3 We now apply our geometrical formalism to three general rarely factor in the equations, but regardless are convenient cases, starting with that of a planet occulter. One specific identifiers for diagrams and will primarily be used for that example of this case would be Mercury transiting the Sun as purpose. viewed from Earth. In what follows, we note that given semi- major axis a and eccentricity e, one can generate bounds on the mutual distances by considering their pericentric 2.2 Mutual distances [a(1 − e)] and apocentric [a(1 + e)] values.
The values of any two of r12, r13 and r23 may be given, al- lowing for trivial computation of the third value. For Cases I and II, when the occulter is a planet or star, the astrocentric 3.1 Never total eclipses distances r12 and r13 are often known, whereas for Case III, From equation (A7), a total eclipse can never occur if when the occulter is a moon, r13 and r23 are often known from observations. max(h + n) < min(r13) − R3 (3) or 1 http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/ − − R3 2 R1 a13 1 e13 http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/ < a13 . (4) 3 R1 − R2 a12 1+ e12 http://exoplanets.org/ !
c 0000 RAS, MNRAS 000, 1–13 Eclipse, transit, and occultation at exo-syzygy 3
In all cases, because the primary is a star and the target must lie at a sufficiently large distance from the occulter to remain stable, the term R3/a13 is negligible. For example, in an extreme case, for a Jupiter-sized planet at 0.05 au away from a star (with another planet in-between), then R3/a13 ≈ 1%. The ratio on the left-hand side of the equation could take on a variety of values depending on the nature of the star. If the star is a giant branch star, then R1 ≫ R2 and
R2 1+ a12 (1 + e12) . a13 (1 − e13) (5) R1 which is effectively a condition on crossing orbits and hence is always true for our setup. Therefore, total eclipses cannot occur in extrasolar systems with two planets and one giant star. If instead the star is a main sequence star larger than a red dwarf, then it is useful to consider the fact that the planet’s size is bounded according to max(R2) ≈ 0.01R⊙. For a red dwarf, around which potentially habitable planets like Proxima b have been discovered (Anglada-Escud´eet al. Figure 1. A geometrical sketch for the umbra and antumbra. ≈ The cone defined by the radiation emitted from the spherical 2016), max(R2) 0.1R⊙. In either approximation, for any primary has a height h and circumscribes the occulter. If the main sequence stars, equation (5) holds and total eclipses target intersects the umbral cone at syzygy, then a total eclipse can never occur. will occur as seen by an observer on the target. The projected area of the total eclipse area is defined by the radius Rumb. Otherwise, 3.2 Always total eclipses an annular eclipse will occur, with a projected radius of Rant. The primary is always larger than the occulter and target. For smaller stars, like white dwarfs, we now consider the opposite extreme. A total eclipse will always occur if
min(h + n) > max(r13) − R3 (6) or − R3 R1 a13 1+ e13 > a13 , (7) R1 − R2 a12 1 − e12 ! which we approximate as
R2 a12 (1 − e12) & a13 (1 + e13) 1 − . (8) R1 by removing the R3/a13 term but otherwise not making any assumptions about the relative values of R1 and R2. Equa- tion (8) holds true when the term in the square brackets is sufficiently small. Therefore, if the primary and occulter are about the same size (such as an Earth-like planet orbiting a white dwarf), then a total eclipse always occurs. Otherwise, the bracketed term determines the factor by which the apocen- tre of the outer planet must be virtually reduced in order to satisfy the equation. Usefully, the equation explicitly con- Figure 2. A geometrical sketch for the penumbral shadow, tains the pericentre of the inner planet and the apocentre of which, in contrast to Fig. 1, is bounded by internal tangent lines the outer planet. between the primary and occulter (the external tangent lines of Fig. 1 produce a longer cone). The height of the cone here is d. The illustration depicts the shadow falling on only part of the 4 CASE II: STELLAR OCCULTER target; for a distant-enough or small-enough target, Rpen would no longer be defined. Because circumbinary planets are now known to be com- mon and will continue to represent a source for some of the most fascinating planetary systems in the foresee- able future (Armstrong et al. 2014; Martin & Triaud 2015; Sahlmann et al. 2015), the case of a stellar occulter is im- portant to consider. When a system contains two stars and
c 0000 RAS, MNRAS 000, 1–13 4 Veras & Breedt
min(a123) ≈
2 M2 M2 a12 1.60 + 4.12 − 5.09 .(12) M1 + M2 M1 + M2 " # This boundary, along with the assumptions of circular- ity and equal stellar densities, allow us to write the condition for ensuring total eclipses on the target in terms of only the stellar radii as 6 4 3 3 4 6 7 R R2 − 3.12R R + 5.12R R + 1.97R1R − 0.97R 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 < 1.6. 3 3 2 (R1 − R2)(R1 + R2) (13) We plot Fig. 3 from equation (13), and recall that our setup requires R1 > R2. The plot emphasizes that the radii of both stars must be close to each other in order to maintain the possibility of a total eclipse.
4.2 Always total eclipses In order to guarantee a total eclipse, we combine equation (6) with equation (1) to yield Figure 3. Where total eclipses in circumbinary systems cannot R1 a123 (1 + e123) M1 R3 occur. Here circular orbits (e12 = e123 = 0) and equal stellar > + − . (14) densities are assumed. The units of R1 and R2 were arbitrarily R1 − R2 a12 M1 + M2 a12 chosen, and in fact may be any other unit. This plot was derived This equation illustrates that when R1 = R2, a total from equation (13). eclipse will always occur. We can again neglect the last term. Under the assumption of equivalent stellar densities, we find 2 2 one circumbinary planet, then the planet’s orbital elements R1R2 R1 + R2 a123 (1 + e123) are usually measured with respect to the centre of mass of 3 3 > . (15) (R1 − R2)(R1 + R2) a12 the stars (and contain a subscript of “123”, as indicated in Section 2). 5 CASE III: MOON OCCULTER 4.1 Never total eclipses For a moon occulter (such as the Sun-Earth-Moon system), Hence, combining the condition for total eclipses to never we follow a similar procedure as to the last two sections in occur (equation 3) with equation (1) yields order to provide relations which establish parameter space regimes in which total eclipses can never or always occur. r12M1 First we note that additional constraints can be im- min(h + n) < max(r123)+max − R3. (9) M1 + M2 posed on the moon’s orbital size, from both below and above. These constraints may be used with the formulae be- This expression, under the reasonable assumption low depending on what quantities are known. As detailed in e12 = 0 for circumbinary planet host stars, gives Payne et al. (2016), moons can exist in stable orbits if they R1 a123 (1 − e123) M1 R3 < + − . (10) reside somewhere outside of the Roche, or disruption, ra- R1 − R2 a12 M1 + M2 a12 dius of the planet, and inside about one-half of a Hill radius (see also Hamilton & Krivov 1997, Domingos et al. 2006 and The last term can be neglected because R3 ≪ R1