The Orbital Eccentricity-Radius Relation for Planets Orbiting M Dwarfs

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Sagear, Sheila, Ballard, Sarah, Gilbert, Gregory J., Albornoz, Mariangel, Lam, Christopher
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Sagear, Sheila
Ballard, Sarah
Gilbert, Gregory J.
Albornoz, Mariangel
Lam, Christopher
author_facet Sagear, Sheila
Ballard, Sarah
Gilbert, Gregory J.
Albornoz, Mariangel
Lam, Christopher
contents The orbital eccentricity-radius relation for small planets is indicative of the predominant dynamical sculpting processes during late-stage orbital evolution. Previous studies have shown that planets orbiting Sun-like stars exhibit an eccentricity-radius trend such that larger planets have higher orbital eccentricities, and that radius gap planets may have modestly higher orbital eccentricities than planets on either side of the radius gap. In this work, we investigate the trend for a sample of smaller M dwarf stars. For a sample of 236 single- and multi-transit confirmed planets or candidates discovered by the TESS and Kepler missions, we constrain orbital eccentricity for each planet from the transit photometry together with a stellar density prior. We investigate the binned eccentricity-planet radius relation for the combined planet sample and present evidence for a positive eccentricity-radius relationship with elevated eccentricities for planets larger than 3.5 R_earth, similar to the trend for planets orbiting Sun-like stars. We find modest evidence that single-transit M dwarf planets near the radius gap exhibit higher eccentricity, consistent with trends for Sun-like stars. However, we see no evidence for an increased eccentricity near the radius gap among multi-transit M dwarf planets. We discuss implications for these results in the context of predominant atmospheric loss mechanisms: namely, supporting evidence for photoevaporation in M dwarf planets vs. planet-planet collisions or giant impacts in FGK dwarf planets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_07169
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Orbital Eccentricity-Radius Relation for Planets Orbiting M Dwarfs
Sagear, Sheila
Ballard, Sarah
Gilbert, Gregory J.
Albornoz, Mariangel
Lam, Christopher
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
The orbital eccentricity-radius relation for small planets is indicative of the predominant dynamical sculpting processes during late-stage orbital evolution. Previous studies have shown that planets orbiting Sun-like stars exhibit an eccentricity-radius trend such that larger planets have higher orbital eccentricities, and that radius gap planets may have modestly higher orbital eccentricities than planets on either side of the radius gap. In this work, we investigate the trend for a sample of smaller M dwarf stars. For a sample of 236 single- and multi-transit confirmed planets or candidates discovered by the TESS and Kepler missions, we constrain orbital eccentricity for each planet from the transit photometry together with a stellar density prior. We investigate the binned eccentricity-planet radius relation for the combined planet sample and present evidence for a positive eccentricity-radius relationship with elevated eccentricities for planets larger than 3.5 R_earth, similar to the trend for planets orbiting Sun-like stars. We find modest evidence that single-transit M dwarf planets near the radius gap exhibit higher eccentricity, consistent with trends for Sun-like stars. However, we see no evidence for an increased eccentricity near the radius gap among multi-transit M dwarf planets. We discuss implications for these results in the context of predominant atmospheric loss mechanisms: namely, supporting evidence for photoevaporation in M dwarf planets vs. planet-planet collisions or giant impacts in FGK dwarf planets.
title The Orbital Eccentricity-Radius Relation for Planets Orbiting M Dwarfs
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07169