Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-of-the-physics-prelims-of-the-university-of-oxford/2021/s02/2/a/solution

The intact source figure gives orbital period , stellar radial velocity semiamplitude , and orbital eccentricity . A planetary exoplanet transit implies a nearly edge-on orbit, so . Adopt a solar mass for the Solar-type star and initially neglect the companion's mass relative to it.
For a circular solution of the two-body problem, the star's distance from the centre of mass is , and the measured semiamplitude is . Kepler's third law gives
Hence
The inferred binary mass ratio is only , validating the approximation. Since , the star–planet separation is constant and equals the orbital semimajor axis. Without the exoplanet transit, Doppler spectroscopy would generally give only a minimum companion mass through .

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