Peas in a Pod? Radius Correlations in Kepler Multiplanet Systems

Abstract

We address the claim of Weiss et al. that the radii of adjacent planets in Kepler multiplanet systems are correlated. We explore two simple toy models—in the first the radii of the planets are chosen at random from a single universal distribution, and in the second we postulate several types of systems with distinct radius distributions. We show that an apparent correlation between the radii of adjacent planets similar to the one reported by Weiss can arise in both models. In addition the second model fits the radius and signal-to-noise distribution of the observed planets. We also comment on the validity of a commonly used correction that is used to estimate intrinsic planet occurrence rates, based on weighting planets by the inverse of their detectability.