KOI-126: A Triply-Eclipsing Hierarchical Triple with Two Low-Mass Stars
Abstract
The Kepler spacecraft has been monitoring the light from 150,000 stars in its primary quest to detect transiting exoplanets. Here we report on the detection of an eclipsing stellar hierarchical triple, identified in the Kepler photometry. KOI-126 (A,(B, C)), is composed of a low-mass binary (masses MB = 0.2413+/-0.0030 MSun, MC = 0.2127+/-0.0026 MSun; radii RB = 0.2543+/-0.0014 RSun, RC = 0.2318+/-0.0013 RSun; orbital period P1 = 1.76713+/-0.00019 days) on an eccentric orbit about a third star (mass MA = 1.347+/-0.032 MSun; radius RA = 2.0254+/-0.0098 RSun; period of orbit around the low-mass binary P2 = 33.9214+/-0.0013 days; eccentricity of that orbit e2 = 0.3043+/-0.0024). The low-mass pair probe the poorly sampled fully-convective stellar domain offering a crucial benchmark for theoretical stellar models.
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