The number of transits per epoch for transiting misaligned circumbinary planets

The growing catalogue of circumbinary planets strengthens the notion that planets form in a diverse range of conditions across the cosmos. Transiting circumbinary planets yield especially important insights and many examples are now known, in broadly coplanar obits with respect to their binary. Studies of circumbinary discs suggest misaligned transiting examples could also plausibly exist, but their existence would exacerbate the already challenging feat of automatic detection. In this work, we synthesize populations of such planets and consider the number of transits per epoch they produce, forming integer sequences. For isotropic distributions, such sequences will appear foreign to conventional expectation, rarely (similar to 1 per cent) producing the signature double-transits we have come to expect for circumbinaries, instead producing sparse sequences dominated by zero-transit epochs (similar to 80 per cent). Despite their strangeness, we demonstrate that these sequences will be non-random and that the two preceding epochs predict the next to high accuracy. Additionally, we show that even when clustering the transits into grouped epochs, they often appear unphysical if erroneously assuming a single star, due to the missing epochs. Crucially, missing epochs mean highly isotropic populations can trick the observer into assigning the wrong period in up to a quarter of cases, adding further confusion. Finally, we show that the transit sequences encode the inclination distribution and demonstrate a simple inference method that successfully matches the injected truth. Our work highlights how the simple act of flagging transits can be used to provide an initial, vetting-level analysis of misaligned transiting circumbinary planets.

Automated summary

The growing number of circumbinary planets discovered suggests that planets can form under a wide range of conditions in the universe. Transiting circumbinary planets, which have been widely observed, provide valuable insights. This study investigates the possibility of misaligned transiting planets and examines the influence of missing data on their detection. The results show that the transit sequences contain important information about the inclination distribution and can be used for initial analysis of misaligned circumbinary planets.