The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will be conducting a nearly all-sky photometric survey over two years, with a core mission goal to discover small transiting exoplanets orbiting ...nearby bright stars. It will obtain 30 minute cadence observations of all objects in the TESS fields of view, along with two-minute cadence observations of 200,000-400,000 selected stars. The choice of which stars to observe at the two-minute cadence is driven by the need to detect small transiting planets, which leads to the selection of primarily bright, cool dwarfs. We describe the catalogs assembled and the algorithms used to populate the TESS Input Catalog (TIC), including plans to update the TIC with the incorporation of the Gaia second data release in the near future. We also describe a ranking system for prioritizing stars according to the smallest transiting planet detectable, and assemble a Candidate Target List (CTL) using that ranking. We discuss additional factors that affect the ability to photometrically detect and dynamically confirm small planets, and we note additional stellar populations of interest that may be added to the final target list. The TIC is available on the STScI MAST server, and an enhanced CTL is available through the Filtergraph data visualization portal system at the URL http://filtergraph.com/tess_ctl.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will observe ∼150 million stars brighter than , with photometric precision from 60 ppm to 3%, enabling an array of exoplanet and stellar astrophysics ...investigations. While light curves will be provided for ∼400,000 targets observed at 2 minute cadence, observations of most stars will only be provided as full-frame images (FFIs) at 30 minute cadence. The TESS image scale of ∼21″/pix is highly susceptible to crowding, blending, and source confusion, and the highly spatially variable point-spread function (PSF) will challenge traditional techniques, such as aperture and Gaussian-kernel PSF photometry. We use official "End-to-End 6" TESS simulated FFIs to demonstrate a difference image analysis pipeline, using a δ-function kernel, that achieves the mission specification noise floor of 60 ppm hr−1/2. We show that the pipeline performance does not depend on position across the field, and only ∼2% of stars appear to exhibit residual systematics at the level of ∼5 ppt. We also demonstrate recoverability of planet transits, eclipsing binaries, and other variables. We provide the pipeline as an open-source tool at https://github.com/ryanoelkers/DIA in both IDL and PYTHON. We intend to extract light curves for all point sources in the TESS FFIs as soon as they become publicly available, and will provide the light curves through the Filtergraph data visualization service. An example data portal based on the simulated FFIs is available for inspection at https://filtergraph.com/tess_ffi.
We perform a study of stellar flares for the 24,809 stars observed with 2 minute cadence during the first two months of the TESS mission. Flares may erode exoplanets' atmospheres and impact their ...habitability, but might also trigger the genesis of life around small stars. TESS provides a new sample of bright dwarf stars in our galactic neighborhood, collecting data for thousands of M dwarfs that might host habitable exoplanets. Here, we use an automated search for flares accompanied by visual inspection. Then, our public allesfitter code robustly selects the appropriate model for potentially complex flares via Bayesian evidence. We identify 1228 flaring stars, 673 of which are M dwarfs. Among 8695 flares in total, the largest superflare increased the stellar brightness by a factor of 16.1. Bolometric flare energies range from 1031.0 to 1036.9 erg, with a median of 1033.1 erg. Furthermore, we study the flare rate and energy as a function of stellar type and rotation period. We solidify past findings that fast rotating M dwarfs are the most likely to flare and that their flare amplitude is independent of the rotation period. Finally, we link our results to criteria for prebiotic chemistry, atmospheric loss through coronal mass ejections, and ozone sterilization. Four of our flaring M dwarfs host exoplanet candidates alerted on by TESS, for which we discuss how these effects can impact life. With upcoming TESS data releases, our flare analysis can be expanded to almost all bright small stars, aiding in defining criteria for exoplanet habitability.
Abstract
SpinSpotter
is a robust and automated algorithm designed to extract stellar rotation periods from large photometric data sets with minimal supervision. Our approach uses the autocorrelation ...function (ACF) to identify stellar rotation periods up to one-third the observational baseline of the data. Our algorithm also provides a suite of diagnostics that describe the features in the ACF, which allows the user to fine-tune the tolerance with which to accept a period detection. We apply it to approximately 130,000 main-sequence stars observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite at 2-minute cadence during Sectors 1–26 and identify rotation periods for 13,504 stars ranging from 0.4 to 14 days. We demonstrate good agreement between our sample and known values from the literature and note key differences between our population of rotators and those previously identified in the Kepler field, most notably a large population of fast-rotating M dwarfs. Our sample of rotating stars provides a data set with coverage of nearly the entire sky that can be used as a basis for future gyrochronological studies and, when combined with proper motions and distances from Gaia, to search for regions with high densities of young stars, thus identifying areas of recent star formation and undiscovered moving group members. Our algorithm is publicly available for download and use on GitHub at
https://github.com/rae-holcomb/SpinSpotter
.
We describe the catalogs assembled and the algorithms used to populate the revised TESS Input Catalog (TIC), based on the incorporation of the Gaia second data release. We also describe a revised ...ranking system for prioritizing stars for 2 minute cadence observations, and we assemble a revised Candidate Target List (CTL) using that ranking. The TIC is available on the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes server, and an enhanced CTL is available through the Filtergraph data visualization portal system at http://filtergraph.vanderbilt.edu/tess_ctl.
The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) has been surveying more than 70% of the celestial sphere for nearly a decade. While the primary science goal of the survey is the discovery of ...transiting, large-radii planets around bright host stars, the survey has collected more than 106 images, with a typical cadence between 10-30 minutes, for more than four million sources with apparent visual magnitudes in the approximate range . Here, we provide a catalog of 52,741 objects showing significant large-amplitude fluctuations likely caused by stellar variability, as well as 62,229 objects identified with likely stellar rotation periods. The detected variability ranges in rms-amplitude from ∼3 mmag to ∼2.3 mag, and the detected periods range from ∼0.1 to 2000 days. We provide variability upper limits for all other ∼4,000,000 sources. These upper limits are principally a function of stellar brightness, but we achieve typical 1 sensitivity on 30 min timescales down to ∼5 mmag at , and down to ∼43 mmag at . We have matched our catalog to the TESS Input catalog and the AAVSO Variable Star Index to precipitate the follow-up and classification of each source. The catalog is maintained as a living database on the Filtergraph visualization portal at the URL https://filtergraph.com/kelt_vars.
Abstract
The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is a dual-hemisphere, near-infrared (NIR), spectroscopic survey with the goal of producing a chemodynamical mapping of ...the Milky Way. The targeting for APOGEE-2 is complex and has evolved with time. In this paper, we present the updates and additions to the initial targeting strategy for APOGEE-2N presented in Zasowski et al. (2017). These modifications come in two implementation modes: (i) “Ancillary Science Programs” competitively awarded to Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV PIs through proposal calls in 2015 and 2017 for the pursuit of new scientific avenues outside the main survey, and (ii) an effective 1.5 yr expansion of the survey, known as the Bright Time Extension (BTX), made possible through accrued efficiency gains over the first years of the APOGEE-2N project. For the 23 distinct ancillary programs, we provide descriptions of the scientific aims, target selection, and how to identify these targets within the APOGEE-2 sample. The BTX permitted changes to the main survey strategy, the inclusion of new programs in response to scientific discoveries or to exploit major new data sets not available at the outset of the survey design, and expansions of existing programs to enhance their scientific success and reach. After describing the motivations, implementation, and assessment of these programs, we also leave a summary of lessons learned from nearly a decade of APOGEE-1 and APOGEE-2 survey operations. A companion paper, F. Santana et al. (submitted; AAS29036), provides a complementary presentation of targeting modifications relevant to APOGEE-2 operations in the Southern Hemisphere.
One of the most well-studied young stellar associations, Taurus-Auriga, was observed by the extended Kepler mission, K2, in the spring of 2017. K2 Campaign 13 (C13) is a unique opportunity to study ...many stars in this young association at high photometric precision and cadence. Using observations from the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) survey, we identify "dippers," aperiodic and periodic variables among K2 C13 target stars. This release of the KELT data (light curve data in e-tables) provides the community with long-time baseline observations to assist in the understanding of the more exotic variables in the association. Transient-like phenomena on timescales of months to years are known characteristics in the light curves of young stellar objects, making contextual pre- and post-K2 observations critical to understanding their underlying processes. We are providing a comprehensive set of the KELT light curves for known Taurus-Auriga stars in K2 C13. The combined data sets from K2 and KELT should permit a broad array of investigations related to star formation, stellar variability, and protoplanetary environments.
Abstract
We present
H
-band light curves of Milky Way classical Cepheids observed as part of the Dark Energy,
H
0
, and peculiar Velocities using Infrared Light from Supernovae survey with the ...Wide-Field Infrared Camera on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope. Due to the crowded nature of these fields caused by defocusing the Camera, we performed difference-imaging photometry by modifying a pipeline originally developed to analyze images from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. We achieved a photometric precision in line with expectations from photon statistics, reaching 0.01 mag for 8 ≲ H ≲ 11 mag. We used the resulting Cepheid light curves to derive corrections to “mean light” for random-phase Hubble Space Telescope observations in
F
160
W
. We find good agreement with previous phase corrections based on
VI
light curves from the literature, with a mean difference of −1 ± 6 mmag.
We report the discovery of TOI-172 b from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission, a massive hot Jupiter transiting a slightly evolved G star with a 9.48-day orbital period. This is ...the first planet to be confirmed from analysis of only the TESS full frame images, because the host star was not chosen as a two-minute cadence target. From a global analysis of the TESS photometry and follow-up observations carried out by the TESS Follow-up Observing Program Working Group, TOI-172 (TIC 29857954) is a slightly evolved star with an effective temperature of Teff = 5645 50 K, a mass of M = M , radius of R = R , a surface gravity of log g = , and an age of . Its planetary companion (TOI-172 b) has a radius of RP = RJ, a mass of MP = MJ, and is on an eccentric orbit ( ). TOI-172 b is one of the few known massive giant planets on a highly eccentric short-period orbit. Future study of the atmosphere of this planet and its system architecture offer opportunities to understand the formation and evolution of similar systems.
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