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DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20011373
&
c ESO 2001
Astrophysics
1
Institut dAstronomie et dAstrophysique, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, CP 226, Boulevard du Triomphe,
1050 Bruxelles, Belgium
2
Observatoire de Geneve, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
e-mail: Michel.Mayor, Stephane.Udry@obs.unige.ch
Received 17 May 2001 / Accepted 24 September 2001
Abstract. The present study derives the distribution of secondary masses M2 for the 67 exoplanets and very
low-mass brown-dwarf companions of solar-type stars, known as of April 4, 2001. This distribution is related to
the distribution of M2 sin i through an integral equation of Abels type. Although a formal solution exists for
this equation, it is known to be ill-conditioned, and is thus very sensitive to the statistical noise present in the
input M2 sin i distribution. To overcome this difficulty, we present two robust, independent approaches: (i) the
formal solution of the integral equation is numerically computed after performing an optimal smoothing of the
input distribution and (ii) the Lucy-Richardson algorithm is used to invert the integral equation. Both approaches
give consistent results. The resulting statistical distribution of exoplanet true masses reveals that there is no reason
to ascribe the transition between giant planets and brown dwarfs to the threshold mass for deuterium ignition
(about 13.6 MJ ). The M2 distribution shows instead that most of the objects have M2 10 MJ , but there is a
small tail with a few heavier candidates around 15 MJ .
companions, Tabachnik & Tremaine (2001) implicitly as- While Eq. (8) represents the formal solution of the
sume that these processes must be similar. problem, it is difficult to implement numerically, since it
requires the differentiation of the observed frequency dis-
tribution (Y ). Unless the observations are of high pre-
2. The integral equation of Abels kind relating cision, it is well known that this process can lead to mis-
the distributions of M2 sin i and M2 leading results. To overcome this difficulty, the observed
frequency distribution has been smoothed in an optimal
The M2 sin i values for low-mass companions of main se- way (see Appendix) before being used in Eq. (8). The so-
quence stars may be extracted from the spectroscopic lution (t) is then computed numerically using standard
mass function and from the primary mass as derived differentiation and integration schemes.
through e.g., isochrone fitting. Let (Y ) be the ob-
served distribution of Y M2 sin i, that is easily derived 3. The Lucy-Richardson inversion algorithm
from the observed spectroscopic mass functions provided applied to Abels integral equation
that M2 M1 as is expected to be the case for the sys-
tems under consideration. Then, the distribution (M2 ) The Lucy-Richardson algorithm provides another robust
obeys the relation way to invert Eq. (4) (see also Cerf & Boffin 1994). The
Z method starts from the Bayes theorem on conditional
(Y ) = (M2 ) (Y |M2 ) dM2 . (1) probability in the form
0
(M2 ) (Y |M2 ) = (Y ) R(M2 |Y ), (9)
The kernel (Y |M2 ) corresponds to the conditional prob-
ability of observing the value Y given M2 . Under the as- where R(M2 |Y ) is the reciprocal kernel corresponding to
sumption that the orbits are oriented at random in space, the integral equation inverse to the one that needs to be
the inclination angle i is distributed as sin i, and the fol- solved (Eq. (1)):
lowing expression is obtained for the kernel: Z M2
sin i0 (M2 ) = (Y ) R(M2 |Y ) dY. (10)
(Y |M2 ) = , (2) 0
M2 cos i0
The reciprocal kernel represents the conditional probabil-
where i0 satisfies the relations M2 sin i0 Y = 0 and ity that the binary system has a companion mass M2 when
0 i0 90. Eliminating the inclination i0 in the above the observed M2 sin i value amounts to Y . Thus, one has:
relation yields
(M2 ) (Y |M2 )
Y 1 R(M2 |Y ) = (11)
(Y |M2 ) = with Y M2 . (3) (Y )
M2 (M2 Y 2 )1/2
2
(M2 ) (Y |M2 )
= R , (12)
Equation (1) thus rewrites 0
(M2 ) (Y |M2 ) dM2
Z
1 which
R obviously satisfies the normalization condition
(Y ) = Y (M2 ) dM2 . (4)
Y M 2 (M 2 Y 2 )1/2
0
R(M 2 |Y ) dM2 = 1. The problem in solving Eq. (10)
2
arises because R(M2 |Y ) also depends on (M2 ), so that
Equation (4) is the integral equation to be solved for an iterative procedure must be used. If r (M2 ) is the rth
(M2 ). It can be reduced to Abels integral equation by estimate of (M2 ), it can be used to obtain the (r + 1)th
the substitutions (Chandrasekhar & Munch 1950) estimate in the following way:
Y 2 = 1/ and M22 = 1/t. (5) Z M2
r+1 (M2 ) = (Y ) Rr (M2 |Y ) dY (13)
With these substitutions, Eq. (4) becomes 0
Z with
(t)
() = dt, (6) r (M2 ) (Y |M2 )
0 ( t)1/2 Rr (M2 |Y ) = (14)
r (Y )
where
and
1 1 1 Z
() ( ) and (t) ( ). (7)
2 t t r (Y ) = r (M2 ) (Y |M2 ) dM2 . (15)
0
It is well known that the solution of Abels equa-
tion (Eq. (6)) is given by Thus, r (Y ) represents the corresponding rth estimate of
Z the observed distribution (Y ). Equations (13) and (14)
1 t 1 1 (0) together yield the recurrence relation for the r s,
(t) = d + , (8)
0 (t )1/2 t Z M2
(Y )
where (0) = limY (Y ) = 0. r+1 (M2 ) = r (M2 ) (Y |M2 ) dY, (16)
0 r (Y )
994 A. Jorissen et al.: The distribution of exoplanet masses
1 X
N
(Y ) = (Y yn ) (17)
N n=1
1 X
N
r+1 (M2 ) = Rr (M2 |yn ) (18)
N n=1
Fig. 3. Comparison of the input 2hopt distribution (thick Fig. 4. Evaluation of the impact of the coplanarity hypothe-
dashed line) and the 67 2hopt distributions (thin dotted lines) sis on the resulting (M2 ) distribution. The dashed histogram
resulting from the application of the jackknife method (see corresponds to the mass distribution obtained assuming copla-
text), which illustrates the uncertainty on the solution 2hopt nar orbits in planetary systems (see text), as compared to
(thick solid line). To guide the eye, a power-law of index 1.6 the 2 (solid histogram) and 2hopt solutions (see Fig. 2).
has been plotted as well (dot-dashed line).
Appendix: Non-parametric treatment of the data In the adaptive kernel version, a local bandwidth hn =
h(Xn , f ) is defined and used in Eq. (19). In order to follow
To decrease the noise and allow a tractable use of the in-
the true underlying function in the best possible way,
formation present in small data samples, heavy smoothing
the amount of smoothing should be small when f is large
techniques are often required. A common practice consists
whereas more smoothing is needed where f takes lower
converting a set of discrete positions into binned counts.
values. A convenient method to do so consists in deriving
Binning is a crude sort of smoothing and many studies in
first a pilot estimate f of f , e.g. by using an histogram or
statistical analysis have shown that, unless the smooth-
a kernel with fixed bandwidth hopt , and then by defining
ing is done in an optimum way, some, or even most, of
the local bandwidths
the information content of the data could be lost. This is
especially true when a large amount of smoothing is nec- hn = h(Xn ) = hopt [f(Xn )/s] , (21)
essary, which then changes the shape of the resulting
function. In statistical terms, the smoothing process not where
1 X
only decreases the noise (i.e., the functions variance), but N
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