A search for the coldest planets observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
ORAL · Invited
Abstract
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is optimized to search small, low-mass stars or "M dwarfs" in the solar neighborhood for transiting extrasolar planets. By focusing on these cool stars and observing the whole sky, TESS represents a new opportunity to study the demographics of planets in these systems. Using observations from TESS, I am conducting a survey of cold planets orbiting low-mass stars to calculate their occurrence rates and to provide targets for future characterization. Although previous planet hunting missions have shown that planets with periods <20 days are abundant around M dwarfs, planets with periods >20 days still encompass a region of parameter space that has yet to be thoroughly explored. These planets and their demographics could provide new insight into theories of planet formation and migration around cool stars. To identify planets in the TESS data, I have designed a pipeline and neural network to detect and vet both single- and multiply-transiting long-period planets, and I am working with the exoplanet community to authenticate the planet candidates I find. I will report on the current state of this search, as well as the discovery of a multi-planet system around low-mass stars that contains an 84-day period planet (the coldest M dwarf planet found by TESS to date) that represents the potential embodied by this search.
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Presenters
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Mallory Harris
University of New Mexico
Authors
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Mallory Harris
University of New Mexico
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Diana Dragomir
University of New Mexico
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Steven Villanueva Jr.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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Ismael Mireles
University of New Mexico