The Kepler spacecraft observes a host of target stars to detect transiting planets. Requiring a 7.1 sigma detection in twelve quarters of data yields over 100,000 detections, many of which are false alarms. After a second cut is made on a robust detection statistic, some 50,000 or more targets still remain. These false alarms waste resources as they propagate through the remainder of the software pipeline and so a method to discriminate against them is crucial in maintaining the desired sensitivity to true events. This paper describes a chi-square test which represents a novel application of the formalism developed by Allen for false alarm mitigation in searches for gravitational waves. Using this technique, the false alarm rate can be lowered to ~5%.
@article{arxiv.1302.7029,
title = {Chi-Square Discriminators for Transiting Planet Detection in Kepler Data},
author = {Shawn Seader and Peter Tenenbaum and Jon M. Jenkins and Christopher J. Burke},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.7029},
year = {2014}
}