IA/U.Porto Cookie Seminar - Search for multi-planetary systems in K2 light curves - 19 julho 2017

The Kepler satellite keeps delivering a huge amount of transit light curves of exoplanets and recently the K2 data is important in exoplanetary search. Transit search algorithm are based on the search for periodic box shaped signals. However, a wide variety of other celestial objects and phenomena produce periodic behaviour in light-curves and result in a large amount of false positive detections. Therefore, an (optimized) algorithm which is specifically designed to detect exoplanetary transits is needed.

 

In this work, the Box-Fitting Least Squares algorithm (BLS) was used to search for transit and derive transit parameters such as period and duration. We start by optimising the BLS parameters in order to assure success in future detections. Then we developed a plotting tool to allow the vetting of false positives by eye in an optimal and efficient way. We tested our procedure in already known candidates from previous K2 campaigns, following which we ventured through the most recent K2 campaign 11 (released in the beginning of July). Our ultimate goal was being able to detect multi-planetary systems, which are very valuable for formation studies of exoplanets. 

Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto (Auditorium)

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