Limits on the orbits and masses of moons around currently-known transiting exoplanets

Abstract

<i>Aims. <i/>Current and upcoming space missions may be able to detect moons of transiting extra-solar planets. In this context it is important to understand if exomoons are expected to exist and what their possible properties are.<i>Methods. <i/>Using estimates for the stability of exomoon orbits from numerical studies, a list of 87 known transiting exoplanets is tested for the potential to host large exomoons.<i>Results. <i/>For 92% of the sample, moons larger than Luna can be excluded on prograde orbits, unless the parent exoplanet's internal structure is very different from the gas-giants of the solar system. Only WASP-24b, OGLE2-TR-L9, CoRoT-3b and CoRoT-9b could have moons above 0.4 , which is within the likely detection capabilities of current observational facilities. Additionally, the range of possible orbital radii of exomoons of the known transiting exoplanets, with two exceptions, is below 8 Jupiter-radii and therefore rather small.