Revised Properties and Dynamical History for the HD 17156 System

Abstract

Abstract From the thousands of known exoplanets, those that transit bright host stars provide the greatest accessibility toward detailed system characterization. The first known such planets were generally discovered using the radial-velocity technique, then later found to transit. HD 17156b is particularly notable among these initial discoveries because it diverged from the typical hot-Jupiter population, occupying a 21.2 day eccentric (e = 0.68) orbit, offering preliminary insights into the evolution of planets in extreme orbits. Here we present new data for this system, including ground- and space-based photometry, radial velocities, and speckle imaging, that further constrain the system properties and stellar/planetary multiplicity. These data include photometry from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite that cover five transits of the known planet. We show that the system does not harbor any additional giant planets interior to 10 au. The lack of stellar companions and the age of the system indicate that the eccentricity of the known planet may have resulted from a previous planet–planet scattering event. We provide the results from dynamical simulations that suggest possible properties of an additional planet that culminated in ejection from the system, leaving a legacy of the observed high eccentricity for HD 17156b.