Abstract

Contributed Talk - Splinter Exoplanets

Thursday, 24 September 2020, 09:45   (virtual room D)

EXOTRANS for the advanced detection and evaluation of transiting planets

Sascha Grziwa, Judith Korth, Martin Pätzold
Rhenish Institute for Environmental Research, Dep. Planetary Research, at the University of Cologne

EXOTRANS was developed by the Rhenish Institute for Environmental Research (RIU-PF) to detect planetary transits in stellar light curves monitored by space telescopes. The pipeline was first applied to the stellar light curves of CoRoT, KEPLER. Improved versions of the pipeline were used to detect candidates in light curves of K2 and TESS as part of the KESPRINT collaboration. (*) As part of the DFG SPP 1992 "Exploring the diversity of exoplanets" we are not only detecting planets but also estimating radius, mass and therefore the density of the detected exoplanets. This shall help to solve questions about the formation and evolution of exoplanets. In the last three years we have confirmed more than 46 planets with measured radius and mass. This includes exoplanets with the size smaller than Earth up to brown dwarfs expanding the diversity of exoplanets. For this challenge our detection pipeline was further improved. EXOTRANS uses wavelet-based filter methods to separate stellar variation and systematic instrumental effects from light curves to detect faint transits. The improved “Advanced-BLS” detection algorithm searches light curves in multiple cycles removing previously detected transits to detect additional fainter transits. The detected transits are modelled automatically to estimate system parameters and evaluated using a neural network to identify false positives. The most promising candidates from our different KESPRINT pipelines are followed-up by the KESPRINT consortium. (*) The KESPRINT collaboration was founded during the K2 mission to bring together scientists around the world with expertise in several fields of exoplanet research for the detection, modelling and confirmation of exoplanets.