Constraining the Physical and Orbital Parameters of Kepler Systems using Stability Criteria

Exoplanetary systems discovered through the transit method alone have well known planetary radii and periods, but many of the additional parameters such as mases, eccentricities, and mutual inclinations are poorly known. A variety of techniques have been implemented to find tighter constraints on these parameters. To aid in this endeavor, we employed a set of metrics based on recent publications to estimate the probability of long-term orbital stability for a given system. These methods were then applied to all of the ~700 Kepler systems with multiple transiting systems. For each system, ~10⁶ realizations were initiated using a wide range of reasonable parameters. This in turn allowed us to investigate which systems are especially sensitive to the physical and orbital parameters of its planets and thus allow for constraints on masses, eccentricities, and inclinations based on stability requirements. While for most systems it is anticipated that enforcing stability will not yield meaningful constraints, we still expect to find that certain systems have particularly interesting conditions such that additional insights into the physical and orbital parameters can be obtained by enforcing stability alone.