| Near-term detectability of terrestrial extrasolar planets: TEP network observations of CM Draconis (1998) | |||||||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||||||
| A manuscript will inserted hand later Your thesaurus codes are Dra ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS Near Term Detectability Terrestrial Extrasolar Planets TEP Network Observations Draconis Deeg Doyle Kozhevnikov Mart Oetiker Palaiologou Schneider Afonso Dunham Jenkins Ninkov S Stone Zakharova arXiv astro Jun Instituto Astrof isica Canarias Laguna Tenerife Spain hdeeg bigfoot com SETI Institute NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field USA doyle gal arc nasa gov Astronomical Observatory Ural State University Lenin Ave Ekaterinburg Russia University New Mexico Dept Physics and Astronomy Albuquerque USA University Crete Skinakas Observatory Box Heraklion Crete Greece CNRS Observatoire Paris Meudon France Lowell Observatory Flagstaff USA Center for Imaging Science Rochester Institute Technology Rochester USA University California Lick Observatory Mount Hamilton USA Received October accepted June Abstract Results from photometric search for extrasolar planetary transits across the eclipsing binary Dra are presented The TEP Transits Extrasolar Planets network has observed this star since and lightcurve with hours coverage has been obtained The data give complete phase coverage the Dra system each the years observations with noise less than mmag New epoch and period values for Dra are derived and low flare rate has been confirmed The absence periodic variations eclipse minimum times excludes the presence very massive planets with periods less than few years The lightcurve was visually scann. Results from a photometric search for extrasolar planetary transits across the eclipsing binary CM Dra are presented. The TEP (Transits of Extrasolar Planets) network has observed this star since 1994, and a lightcurve with 617 hours of coverage has been obtained. The data give a complete phase coverage of the CM Dra system at each of the 3 years of observations, with a noise of less than 5 mmag. New epoch and period values for CM Dra are derived, and a low flare rate of 0.025 hr^−1 has been confirmed. The absence of periodic variations in eclipse minimum times excludes the presence of very massive planets with periods of less than a few years. The lightcurve was visually scanned for the presence of unusual events which may be indicative of transits of extrasolar planets with ’massive earth’ sizes. Six suspicious events were found which are being followed up for future transits, by planets with sizes between 1.5 and 2.5 RE (Earth Radii). However, none of these events has amplitudes compatible with planets larger than 2.5 RE. Coplanar planets larger than 2.5 RE and with orbital periods of less than 60 days can therefore be ruled out with a confidence of about 80%. Planets smaller than 1.5 RE cannot be detected in the data without a sub-noise detection algorithm. A preliminary signal detection analysis shows that there is a 50% detection confidence for 2 RE planets with a period from 10 to 30 days with the current data. This data-set demonstrates that it is possible to detect terrestrial sized planets with ground based photometry, and that strong constraints on the sizes of planets orbiting in the plane of the CM Dra system can be set (Refer to PDF file for exact formulas).. The TEP network wishes to thank numerous people, without whose support the acquisition of these data would have been impossible. The observations by LRD and RS at the oldest reflecting telescope still in professional use - the Crossley Telescope at Lick Observatory - were very support intensive and we thank Ellen Blue, Moira Doyle, Neil Heather, Dave Koch, and the time allocation committee at UC Santa Cruz for their support. For observations and reductions at Capilla Peak, we thank Randy Grashuis. We thank Ayvur Akalin who helped us with an implementation of the Kwee-v. Woerden algorithm. We also thank Woo-Baik Lee and Ho-Il Kim at the Korean Astronomy Observatory for helpful correspondence. The IAC80 telescope is operated at Iza˜na Observatory, Tenerife by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. We thank the University of Rochester for use of the Mees Telescope. HJD acknowledges a postdoctoral fellowship from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1994, and later a grant ’Formaci´on de Personal Investigador’ from the Ministry for Education and Culture of Spain. The observations by LRD were supported in part by a grant from the NASA Ames Research Center Director’s Discretionary Fund. JS acknowledges funding provided by the French ’Programme National de Planetologie (CNRS)’. | |||||||||||||||
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