Daniel Huber, Michael J. Ireland, Timothy R. Bedding, Steve B. Howell, Vicente Maestro, Antoine Mérand, Peter G. Tuthill, Timothy R. White, Christopher D. Farrington, P. J. Goldfinger, Harold A. McAlister, Gail H. Schaefer, Judit Sturmann, Laszlo Sturmann, Theo A. ten Brummelaar, Nils H. Turner
We present long-baseline interferometry of the Kepler exoplanet host star
HD179070 (Kepler-21) using the PAVO beam combiner at the CHARA Array. The
visibility data are consistent with a single star and exclude stellar
companions at separations ~1-1000 mas (~ 0.1-113 AU) and contrasts < 3.5
magnitudes. This result supports the validation of the 1.6 R_{earth} exoplanet
Kepler-21b by Howell et al. (2012) and complements the constraints set by
adaptive optics imaging, speckle interferometry, and radial velocity
observations to rule out false-positives due to stellar companions. We conclude
that long-baseline interferometry has strong potential to validate transiting
extrasolar planets, particularly for future projects aimed at brighter stars
and for host stars where radial velocity follow-up is not available.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5307
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