NanoKepler -- Hunting for Planets with Kepler

Based on materials originally developed by Kaspar von Braun (NStED/IPAC) for the 2010 Sagan Exoplanet Workshop. This group project was entitled "Hunting for Planets with Kepler."

Introduction

The basic scenario here is that we have a very small Kepler mission analog -- a "nanoKepler", if you will. You have photometric light curves of 50-100 Kepler targets.

Goals

Find and characterize the transiting exoplanets within them. Are there any 'false positives'? (hint: yes) What are they, or could they be? What other kinds of variable sources can you find and identify? What can you say about the variability characteristics of the dataset as a whole?

Tools

NStED database and periodogram tools. You will need to look at the light curves, phased and unphased, and look at the results of the periodogram analysis.

Questions to consider

• Are there planet transits in the dataset? What can you say about

them? What can you say about the planets?

• What other kind of variable stars are there? What are they?
• Are there signals that look like planet transits, but are not (false positives)?

What could cause them?

• What kind of statistical properties (e.g., chi‐squared, RMS, etc) are typical for the different kinds of variable stars (i.e., how would you search for a certain kind of variable in a large dataset)?
• What are statistical properties of the dataset (e.g., RMS as a function of brightness, how many variable stars, how many planet transits, how many non‐variable stars, etc)?
• Are there periodic signals present in all light curves (“red noise”)? What could typical sources of red noise be in space‐based data such as these?
• Which algorithm or method is preferable for which goal (e.g., for period‐phasing or for transit finding)?
• Isn’t NStED the coolest thing ever?