ES-03-0035

The Demographics of Planets in Binaries Reveal Planet Formation and Evolution

Kendall Sullivan, Adam L. Kraus, Daniel Huber, Erik A. Petigura, Elise Evans, Trent Dupuy, Jingwen Zhang, Travis A. Berger, Eric Gaidos, Andrew W. Mann

Binary stars are ubiquitous; about half of solar-type stars exist in binaries. Exoplanet occurrence rate is suppressed in binaries, but some multiples still host planets. Multiplicity reduces the size and lifetime of protoplanetary disks, suggesting that binaries not only suppress planet formation but also could fundamentally alter the properties of planets in multiples. Binaries also cause observational biases in planet parameters, with undetected multiplicity causing transiting planets to appear smaller than they truly are. To understand the impact of the observational and physical effects of binaries on planet populations, we studied a population of small planets to investigate the properties of the radius gap in binaries. The radius gap is a dearth of small planets separating rocky super-Earths from gaseous sub-Neptunes, and we did not detect a statistically significant radius gap in our population of Kepler planets in binary stars. This could be a result of the radius distribution of small planets changing as a function of binary separation, but more work is required to understand the demographics of planets in binary star systems.