Revised Masses for Low-density Planets Orbiting the Disordered M-dwarf System TOI-1266
Abstract We present an analysis of 126 new radial velocity measurements from the MAROON-X spectrograph to investigate the TOI-1266 system, which hosts two known transiting sub-Neptunes at 10.8 and 18.8 days. We integrated our measurements with existing HARPS-N measurements for this system and derived revised masses for TOI-1266 b and c of M b = 4.09 ± 0.45 M ⊕ and M c = 2.64 ± 0.52 M ⊕ , respectively. The Keplerian fit from the combined datasets enabled an ≈35% and ≈41% improvement in mass precision for planet b and c, respectively, compared to the previously published values. With bulk densities of ρ b = 1.25 ± 0.21 g cm −3 and ρ c = 1.51 ± 0.39 g cm −3 , the planets are among the lowest density sub-Neptunes orbiting an M dwarf. They are both consistent with rocky cores surrounded by hydrogen helium envelopes. TOI-1266 c may also be consistent with a water-rich composition, but we disfavor that interpretation from an Occam's razor perspective.
Authors
- Jack Lubin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8342-7736)
- R. Luque (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4671-2957)
- Dakotah Tyler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0298-4667)
- Erik A. Petigura (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0967-2893)
- Madison Brady (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2404-2427)
- Jacob L. Bean (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4733-6532)
- James G. Rogers (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7615-6798)
- Andreas Seifahrt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4526-3747)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Astronomical Journal
- Published
- 2025-02-03
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ada121
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.31