Abstract
Astronomers do not have a complete picture of the effects of wide-binary
companions (semimajor axes greater than 100 AU) on the formation and evolution
of exoplanets. We investigate these effects using new data from Gaia EDR3 and
the TESS mission to characterize wide-binary systems with transiting
exoplanets. We identify a sample of 67 systems of transiting exoplanet
candidates (with well-determined, edge-on orbital inclinations) that reside in
wide visual binary systems. We derive limits on orbital parameters for the
wide-binary systems and measure the minimum difference in orbital inclination
between the binary and planet orbits. We determine that there is statistically
significant difference in the inclination distribution of wide-binary systems
with transiting planets compared to a control sample, with the probability that
the two distributions are the same being 0.0037. This implies that there is an
overabundance of planets in binary systems whose orbits are aligned with those
of the binary. The overabundance of aligned systems appears to primarily have
semimajor axes less than 700 AU. We investigate some effects that could cause
the alignment and conclude that a torque caused by a misaligned binary
companion on the protoplanetary disk is the most promising explanation.
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