Marsh, T. R., Parsons, S. G., Bours, M. C. P. et al. (6 more authors) (2014) The planets around NN Serpentis: still there. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 437 (1). pp. 475-488. ISSN 0035-8711
Abstract
We present 25 new eclipse times of the white dwarf binary NN Ser taken with the high-speed camera ULTRACAM on the William Herschel Telescope and New Technology Telescope, the RISE camera on the Liverpool Telescope and HAWK-I on the Very Large Telescope to test the two-planet model proposed to explain variations in its eclipse times measured over the last 25 yr. The planetary model survives the test with flying colours, correctly predicting a progressive lag in eclipse times of 36 s that has set in since 2010 compared to the previous 8 yr of precise times. Allowing both orbits to be eccentric, we find orbital periods of 7.9 ± 0.5 and 15.3 ± 0.3 yr, and masses of 2.3 ± 0.5 and 7.3 ± 0.3 MJ. We also find dynamically long-lived orbits consistent with the data, associated with 2:1 and 5:2 period ratios. The data scatter by 0.07 s relative to the best-fitting model, by some margin the most precise of any of the proposed eclipsing compact object planet hosts. Despite the high precision, degeneracy in the orbit fits prevents a significant measurement of a period change of the binary and of N-body effects. Finally, we point out a major flaw with a previous dynamical stability analysis of NN Ser, and by extension, with a number of analyses of similar systems.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Authors 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Astronomical Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | binaries: close; binaries: eclipsing; planetary systems; white dwarfs |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 30 Nov 2016 16:26 |
Last Modified: | 30 Nov 2016 16:26 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stt1903 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press (OUP): Policy P - Oxford Open Option A |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/mnras/stt1903 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:108462 |