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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
earth and planetary sciences
Planet Hunters IX. KIC 8462852 - Where's the flux?
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 457, No. 4, Year 2016
Notification
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Description
Over the duration of the Kepler mission, KIC 8462852 was observed to undergo irregularly shaped, aperiodic dips in flux of up to ~20 per cent. The dipping activity can last for between 5 and 80 d.We characterize the object with high-resolution spectroscopy, spectral energy distribution fitting, radial velocity measurements, high-resolution imaging, and Fourier analyses of the Kepler light curve. We determine that KIC 8462852 is a typical main-sequence F3 V star that exhibits no significant IR excess, and has no very close interacting companions. In this paper, we describe various scenarios to explain the dipping events observed in the Kepler light curve.We confirm that the dipping signals in the data are not caused by any instrumental or data processing artefact, and thus are astrophysical in origin. We construct scenario-independent constraints on the size and location of a body in the system that are needed to reproduce the observations. We deliberate over several assorted stellar and circumstellar astrophysical scenarios, most of which have problems explaining the data in hand. By considering the observational constraints on dust clumps in orbit around a normal main-sequence star, we conclude that the scenario most consistent with the data in hand is the passage of a family of exocomet or planetesimal fragments, all of which are associated with a single previous break-up event, possibly caused by tidal disruption or thermal processing. The minimum total mass associated with these fragments likely exceeds 10-6 M⊕, corresponding to an original rocky body of >100 km in diameter. We discuss the necessity of future observations to help interpret the system. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Authors & Co-Authors
Boyajian, Tabetha S.
United States, New Haven
Yale University
LaCourse, Daryll Matthew
Unknown Affiliation
Rappaport, Saul A.
United States, Cambridge
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fabrycky, Daniel C.
United States, Chicago
The University of Chicago
Fischer, Debra A.
United States, New Haven
Yale University
Gandolfi, Davide
Italy, Turin
Università Degli Studi Di Torino
Germany, Heidelberg
Universität Heidelberg
Kennedy, Grant M.
United Kingdom, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
Korhonen, Heidi H.
Finland, Turku
Turun Yliopisto
Denmark, Copenhagen
Københavns Universitet
Moór, Attila C.
Hungary, Budapest
Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences
Wyatt, Mark C.
United Kingdom, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
Best, William M.J.
United States, Honolulu
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Ciesla, Fred J.
United States, Chicago
The University of Chicago
Deeg, Hans J.
Spain, San Cristobal de la Laguna
Instituto Astrofisico de Canarias
Spain, San Cristobal de la Laguna
Universidad de la Laguna
Handler, Gerald
Poland, Warsaw
Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Heng, Kevin
Switzerland, Bern
University of Bern
Howell, Steve B.
United States, Moffett Field
Nasa Ames Research Center
Kriskovics, Levente
Hungary, Budapest
Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences
Lintott, Chris J.
United Kingdom, Oxford
University of Oxford
Schawinski, Kevin
Switzerland, Zurich
Eth Zürich
Smith, Alexis M.S.
Unknown Affiliation
Szabó, Róbert
Hungary, Budapest
Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences
Wang, Ji
United States, New Haven
Yale University
United States, Pasadena
California Institute of Technology
Green, Gregory Maurice
Unknown Affiliation
Omohundro, Mark R.
Unknown Affiliation
Schwengeler, Hans Martin
Unknown Affiliation
Statistics
Citations: 179
Authors: 25
Affiliations: 24
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1093/mnras/stw218
ISSN:
00358711