http://arxiv.org/abs/1911.02012
The Neptune desert is a feature seen in the radius-mass-period plane, whereby a notable dearth of short period, Neptune-like planets is found. Here we report the \tess\, discovery of a new short-period planet in the Neptune desert, orbiting the G-type dwarf TYC\,8003-1117-1 (TOI-132). {\it TESS} photometry shows transit-like dips at the level of $\sim$1400 ppm occurring every $\sim$2.11 days. High-precision radial velocity follow-up with HARPS confirmed the planetary nature of the transit signal and provided a semi-amplitude radial velocity variation of $\sim$11.5 m s$^{-1}$, which, when combined with the stellar mass of $0.97\pm0.06$ $M_{\odot}$, provides a planetary mass of 22.83$^{+1.81}{-1.80}$ $M{\oplus}$. Modeling the {\it TESS} high-quality light curve returns a planet radius of 3.43$^{+0.13}{-0.14}$ $R{\oplus}$, and therefore the planet bulk density is found to be 3.11$^{+0.44}{-0.450}$ g cm$^{-3}$. Planet structure models suggest that the bulk of the planet mass is in the form of a rocky core, with an atmospheric mass fraction of 4.3$^{+1.2}{-2.3}$\%. TOI-132 b is a {\it TESS} Level 1 Science Requirement candidate, and therefore priority follow-up will allow the search for additional planets in the system, whilst helping to constrain low-mass planet formation and evolution models, particularly valuable for better understanding the Neptune desert.
M. Díaz, J. Jenkins, D. Gandolfi, et. al.
Thu, 7 Nov 19
7/50
Comments: 12 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables. Submitted to MNRAS. Comments welcome