Planetary Architectures of Kepler Compact Multis with Binary Star Companions

Planets in binary-star systems exhibit demographic differences compared to planets in single-star systems.

In particular, planets with binary-star hosts have a lower overall occurrence rate compared to their single-star counterparts, as well as a suppressed relative occurrence rate for sub-Neptunes (Rp=2−4R_⊕) compared to super-Earths (Rp=1.0−1.5R_⊕). These differences are most pronounced in close separation binaries (ρ<100 au) which has been interpreted as a result of binary stars disrupting the protoplanetary disks of their stellar companions.

The architectures of planetary systems — i.e. the arrangements of planet sizes and orbits — provide additional information about system formation and evolution. Architectures of single-star planetary systems are well studied, but architectures of binary-star planetary systems have not been investigated in detail.

In this work, we analyzed a large sample of Kepler planetary systems (162 planets in 118 binary-star systems; 880 planets in 544 single-star systems) to compare their architectures as a function of stellar multiplicity.

We found that planets with binary-star hosts follow a similar “peas-in-a-pod” tendency toward uniformity in planet radii and log-uniformity in period spacing as planets with single-star hosts. However, we also detected modest (2.5−3σ) differences in period spacing and planet multiplicity, with binary-star systems having higher typical gap complexities (indicating more uneven spacing) and a higher prevalence of single planets.

We interpret these results as evidence that binary stars primarily influence the planetary architectures of their stellar companions by shaping the protoplanetary disk at formation, with subsequent dynamical processing more gently altering the system architectures over secular timescales.

Kendall Sullivan, Gregory J. Gilbert

Comments: 18 pages, 15 figures. Accepted to AJ
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2603.21897 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2603.21897v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.21897
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Submission history
From: Kendall Sullivan
[v1] Mon, 23 Mar 2026 12:21:58 UTC (464 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.21897
Astrobiology, Exoplanet,