CAUP Seminar - PASTIS: A new fully-bayesian tool for planet validation - 15 abril 2013

PASTIS: A new fully-bayesian tool for planet validation 

Alexandre Santerne

CAUP

Resumo

The CoRoT and Kepler space missions, designed to find small planets that transit in front of their star, discovered more than 3000 transiting planet-candidates. They are so-called "candidates" since various configuration of stellar systems might mimic exactly the same signal as a transit of a planet (so-called "false positives"). To distinguish a planet from a stellar systems, the usual way is to measure the mass of the transiting objects using high-accuracy spectrographs (e.g., SOPHIE@OHP-1.93m or HARPS-N@TNG-3.6m). But current spectrographs are not sensitive enough to characterize small planets from the CoRoT or Kepler surveys. A new technique has been developed for these planets. This technique consists on statistically validating the planet by rejecting all false-positive scenarios. In this seminar, I will first present the context of the transiting planets and the false-positive issue. Then, I will introduce the planet-validation technique and present the PASTIS tool in this framework. I will also discuss future developments and use of the PASTIS tool that can validate planets down to the size of the Earth.

15 de abril de 2013 | 13:30

Local

Centro de Astrofísica da U.P.
Rua das Estrelas
4150-762 Porto