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The Small Exoplanet Mass-Radius Relation: Quantifying the Astrophysical Scatter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2016

Angie Wolfgang
Affiliation:
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Penn State University
Leslie A. Rogers
Affiliation:
Sagan Fellow, Dept. of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley
Eric B. Ford
Affiliation:
Dept. of Astronomy & AstrophysicsCenter for Astrostatistics, Penn State University
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Abstract

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The Kepler Mission has discovered thousands of planets with radii <4 R ⊕, paving the way for the first statistical studies of super-Earth dynamics, formation, and evolution. These calculations often require planetary masses, and yet the vast majority of Kepler planet candidates do not have theirs measured. A key concern is therefore how to map the measured radii to mass estimates in a size range that lacks Solar System analogs. While previous works have derived one-to-one relationships between radius and mass, a realistic mass-radius (M-R) relation should account for the range of compositions that we expect within the population. This compositional diversity creates astrophysical scatter in the relation, which we quantify here.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2016