Gy. M. Szabó, A. Pál, A. Derekas, A. E. Simon, T. Szalai, L. L. Kiss
KOI-13 is the first known transiting system exhibiting light curve
distortions due to gravity darkening of the rapidly rotating host star. In this
paper we analyze publicly available Kepler Q2--Q3 short-cadence observations,
detecting a continuous light variation with a period of Prot = 25.43 +- 0.05
hour and a half-amplitude of 21 ppm, which is linked to stellar rotation. This
period is in exact 5:3 resonance with the orbit of KOI-13.01, which is the
first detection of a spin-orbit resonance in a host of a substellar companion.
The stellar rotation leads to stellar oblateness, which is expected to cause
secular variations in the orbital elements. We indeed detect the gradual
increment of the transit duration with a rate of (1.14 +- 0.30) * 10^{-6}
day/cycle. The confidence of this trend is 3.85-sigma, the two-sided false
alarm probability is 0.012%. We suggest that the reason for this variation is
the expected change of the impact parameter, with a rate of db/dt = -0.016 +-
0.004/yr. Assuming b~0.25, KOI-13.01 may become a nontransiting object in
75--100 years. The observed rate is compatible with the expected secular
perturbations due to the stellar oblateness yielded by the fast rotation.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.4231
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