Default priors cause biases in orbital parameter estimates for
directly-imaged exoplanets.
Abstract
The eccentricity of the planet’s orbit and the inclination of the
orbital plane carry important information about its formation and
history. However, exoplanets detected via direct-imaging are often only
observed for a very small fraction of their period, making it
challenging to reliably estimate their orbits. The aim of this project
is to investigate biases in the estimation of orbital parameters of
directly-imaged exoplanets, particularly their eccentricities, and to
define general guidelines to perform better estimations. For this, we
constructed various orbits, and generated mock data for each spanning
around 0.5% of their orbital period. We the Orbits For The Impatient
(OFTI) algorithms to get orbit posteriors, and compared those to the
true orbital parameters. We found that the inclination of the orbital
plane is the parameter that most affects our estimations of
eccentricity, with orbits that appear near-edge-on producing highly
biased eccentricity posteriors. We also found a degeneracy between
eccentricity and inclination that makes it ifficult to distinguish
circular, edge-on orbits from eccentric, face-on orbits. For the
exoplanet-imaging community, we propose practical recommendations,
guidelines and warnings relevant to orbit-fitting.