The Intrinsic Multiplicity Distribution of Exoplanets Revealed from the Radial Velocity Method

Abstract

Planet multiplicities are useful in constraining the formation and evolution of planetary systems, but they are usually difficult to constrain observationally. Here, we develop a general method that can properly take into account the survey incompleteness and recover the intrinsic planet multiplicity distribution. We then apply it to the radial velocity (RV) planet sample from the California Legacy Survey (CLS). Within the 1 au (10 au) region, we find 21% ± 4% (19.2% ± 2.8%) of Sun-like stars host planets with masses above 10 M ⊕ (0.3 M J), about 30% (40%) of which are multiplanet systems; in terms of the RV semi-amplitude K, 33% ± 7% (25% ± 3%) of Sun-like stars contain planets of K > 1 m s−1 (3 m s−1), and each system hosts on average 1.8 ± 0.4 (1.63 ± 0.16) planets. We note that the hot Jupiter rate in the CLS Sun-like sample is higher than the consensus value of ∼1% by a factor of about three. We also confirm previous studies on the correlation between inner ( <1 au) and outer ( >1 au) planets.