The exomoon corridor for multiple moon systems

ABSTRACT The so-called ‘exomoon corridor’ is a potentially powerful new tool for identifying possible exomoon hosts, enabled by the observation that fully half of all planets hosting an will exhibit transit timing variation (TTV) periodicities 2–4 epochs. One key outstanding problem in search exomoons, however, question how well methods we have developed under single moon assumption extend to systems with multiple moons. In this work, use N-body simulations examine corridor effect more general case N ? 1 moons, generating realistic TTVs produced satellite akin those seen outer Solar System. We find indeed relationship does hold up 5 moons both resonant and non-resonant chain configurations. Our results suggest observational bias against finding large numbers massive moons; as number increases, total mass ratios are generally required be significantly lower order maintain stability, or architectures must finely tuned survive. Moons impact capture scenarios may therefore dominate early detections. Finally, distribution TTV periods measured Kepler objects interest (KOIs) same characteristic several cases. This could dynamical evidence abundance field, though caution strong inferences based on result.