Abstract
By surveying new fields for the shortest-period "big" planets, the Kepler
spacecraft could provide the statistics to more clearly measure the occurrence
distributions of giant and medium planets. This would allow separate
determinations for giant and medium planets of the relationship between the
inward rate of tidal migration of planets and the strength of the stellar tidal
dissipation (as expressed by the tidal quality factor Q). We propose a "Hot Big
Planets Survey" to find new big planets to better determine the planet
occurrence distribution at the shortest period. We call planets that Kepler
will be able to find as "big", for the purpose of comparing the distribution of
giant and medium planets (above and below 8 earth radii). The distribution of
planets from one field has been interpreted to show that the shortest period
giant planets are at the end of an ongoing flow of high eccentricity migration,
likely from scattering from further out. The numbers of planets at these short
periods is still small, leaving uncertainty over the result that the
distribution shows the expected power index for inward tidal migration. The
current statistics make it hard to say whether the presence of more giant
planets at the shortest periods despite there being more medium planets at most
periods indicates a greater migration of giant than medium planets. We propose
a repurposed Kepler mission to make enough 45-day observations to survey 10
times as many stars as in the survey of the original field, to survey for
planets with periods of up to fifteen days with at least three transits. The
current statistics make it hard to say whether the presence of more giant
planets at the shortest periods despite there being more medium planets at most
periods indicates a greater migration of giant than medium planets.
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